A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary. In most languages, "soldier" includes commissioned and non-commissioned officers in national land forces.
The common Roman's origin for the words soldier and payment survives not only in French as soldat and solde, but also in other languages, like German Soldat and Sold, Romanian Soldat, Spanish...
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A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary. In most languages, "soldier" includes commissioned and non-commissioned officers in national land forces.
The common Roman's origin for the words soldier and payment survives not only in French as soldat and solde, but also in other languages, like German Soldat and Sold, Romanian Soldat, Spanish soldado and sueldo, Portuguese soldado and soldo, Dutch soldaat and soldij, Italian "soldato" and "soldo", Arabic "جندي" (Jondi), or "مجنّد" (mojannad), or "عسكر" (askar) in the Lebanese Dialect, Turkish asker.
In the Russian language the word soldier is also "солдат" ("soldat"), although it is not related to the Russian word for money, but was borrowed from German use. In some languages the word soldier is derived from different etymology. For example Estonian "sõdur" is derived from word "sõda," which means "war." And Finnish "sotilas" or ...
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