foot soldier
24
3.8
- noun
- /fʊt ˈsoʊldʒər/
:
soldado de infantería
- The foot soldier marched through the muddy fields, prepared for battle.
- peasant foot soldiers
If they're silly enough to send foot soldiers to me, I'll deal with.
- If they're silly enough to send foot soldiers to me, I'll deal with.
- I can talk about the religion, no different from Al Qaeda members, not the foot soldiers.
- They're marching back, they're singing psalms on one side of the line, the foot soldiers, the mounted soldiers singing hymns from the other.
- Loads of sort of listeners and viewers, massive foot soldier fans, massive true crime fans.
- I'll still get comments from the, the foot soldiers and stuff like that.
- Everybody, you know, an army is not run by field Martians and nobody has a foot soldier.
Examples
-
The company relies on its foot soldiers to handle the day-to-day operations effectively.
-
After years of service, he felt proud to be a foot soldier in the community organization.
-
"Get as many of your foot soldiers to my boat as you can, as quickly as possible."
Fiction book (1990) -
Listen, there are generals, and there are foot soldiers.
-
With that example before them, the foot soldiers followed readily enough.
Fiction book (1992) -
From now on, you will serve in my ranks as a foot soldier.
-
It's the poor bloody foot soldiers that won his battles for him we should be celebrating.
-
They're often called the "foot soldiers" of the movement.
Academic text (2016) -
Behind the horsemen, there appears to be movement by smaller groups of foot soldiers.
Fiction book (1998) -
They've got at least a dozen foot soldiers with them.
Synonyms
41
7.0
A low-level soldier or worker who does basic routine tasks
6
6.3
A soldier who fights on foot in the army
1
2.8
A person in the army or marines with the lowest rank
A soldier who fights on foot, marching long distances with a heavy pack and gun
How Senior
636
4.2
∞
2.4
- Specialized
2
6.2
24
3.8
149
3.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a soldier who fights on foot' is directly compositional from 'foot' + 'soldier' and a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer this literal sense. The extended metaphorical use meaning 'an ordinary or low-level member' is also plausibly derivable from the literal sense, and the construction is cross-linguistically common, supporting transparency.
Etymology
Foot soldier comes from the image of a soldier who fights on foot, walking into battle rather than riding a horse. So today 'foot soldier' often means an 'ordinary member' who does the basic or routine work in a group.