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paratrooper

paratrooper

28 5.8
A soldier who jumps from a plane using a parachute to fight
  • noun
  • /ˈpærəˌtruːpər/
translation icon : paracaidista
  • So I volunteered to become a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division.
  • French paratroopers
  • three paratroopers

The light, the sky was lit up by rockets and I visited my old paratrooper unit.

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Examples

  • The Junkers will drop paratroopers in your rear to cut you off.

  • Now, La Berge was a quiet man, a former paratrooper in the Foreign Legion, quiet but tough, you know.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • The light, the sky was lit up by rockets and I visited my old paratrooper unit.

  • I was a paratrooper in Her Majesty's service, 15 years.

  • Same thing for those paratroopers down there.

  • Excuse the interruption, Field Marshal but... British paratroopers have landed... three kilometres from here.

  • US Army paratroopers, National Guardsmen, state and local police are continuing the fight against a handful of snipers.

  • As fellow troopers aid wounded buddies, a paratrooper of A Company, 101st Airborne, guides a medical evacuation.

    Blog text (27)
  • Narrator 2: The President sends 1,000 paratroopers from the Army's 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock.

    Fiction book (2000)
  • As a trained paratrooper, he jumped into hostile territory during the mission.

Synonyms

paratroop
vsparatrooper
2 5.3

Soldiers trained to jump from planes with parachutes to fight

refers specifically to one trained soldier rather than the group or operation
para
vsparatrooper
  • Jargon
1 8.3

A soldier trained to jump from a plane with a parachute

is broader and not tied to a specific unit

Surface Forms

paratrooper singular
paratroopers plural

Morphology

paratrooper = trooper (semi-transparent) = para + trooper

The word is built from a clipped para- element plus 'trooper', so the soldier part is clear but the parachute connection is only partly transparent.

Etymology

Paratrooper comes from parachute ('a large cloth that makes you fall slowly') and trooper ('soldier'), so a paratrooper is a soldier who jumps from planes with a parachute.