Soldier refers to a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas, a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be a mercenary. In most languages, "soldier" includes commissioned and non-commissioned officers in national land forces. Etymology The word soldier's derived from an Old French word, itself a derivation of Solidarius, Latin for someone who served in the armed forces for pay, as opposed to warriors in tribal society where every grown man's automatically a memb… (More on Soldier)