How to Use mercenary in a Sentence

mercenary

1 of 2 noun
  • He’s seen mercenaries come and go, off to find the next one-year contract.
    — Mark Lazerus, New York Times, 14 Jan. 2026
  • That leaves open the question of who will lead his brutal band of mercenaries.
    — Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY, 24 June 2023
  • Most of the mercenaries were soon captured, though three were killed in a firefight.
    — Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 17 July 2023
  • Berserk is the story of Guts, a skilled warrior who joins a band of mercenaries.
    — Chris Snellgrove, Entertainment Weekly, 27 Sep. 2025
  • After some chit-chat aboard a space station, all hell breaks loose when a bunch of mercenaries come in guns blazing.
    — Fran Ruiz, Space.com, 27 Apr. 2026
  • But the initial grab, the sell of most pop songwriting, requires a mercenary’s mind, too.
    — New York Times, 28 Apr. 2026
  • Some people will perceive you as a traitor or mercenary for leaving for a bigger payday.
    — Jack Kelly, Forbes, 29 Dec. 2022
  • Durand is one of the mercenaries while Martell is the titular boy in the iron box.
    — Borys Kit, HollywoodReporter, 19 Sep. 2025
  • What other elements were key to bringing this scary world of mercenaries to life?
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 18 Mar. 2026
  • The Boss takes a job with a local mercenary-for-hire group to make ends meet, and the roommates do odd jobs for the local gangs.
    — Sarah Leboeuf, Ars Technica, 21 July 2022
  • Because mercenaries with some equipment and weapons were very close to Moscow.
    — ABC News, 9 July 2023
  • Nearly half of the soldiers who were killed were mercenaries, officials said.
    — Mike Brest, Washington Examiner, 5 May 2023
  • This draws the attention of a bureaucrat who hires mercenaries to go after him.
    — Robert Lang, Deadline, 12 Dec. 2025
  • Troll mercenaries causing mayhem with heavy weapons.
    — Rob Wieland, Forbes.com, 27 Aug. 2025
  • Cortés and his men are rough mercenaries who rape, plunder and murder without compunction.
    — Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Los Angeles Times, 2 Jan. 2024
  • The best business owners are missionaries and mercenaries at the very same time.
    — Lien De Pau, Forbes.com, 26 June 2026
  • And the continent has proved a strong market for Russian weapons and mercenaries.
    — Paul Sonne, BostonGlobe.com, 26 July 2023
  • In some cases, children are sent out of Syria to fight as mercenaries in other conflicts.
    — Hogir Abdo and Abby Sewell, The Christian Science Monitor, 28 June 2023
  • Switzerland, though largely neutral, became a key source of mercenaries.
    — Scott Neuman, NPR, 12 Nov. 2025
  • Russia said he would be exiled to Belarus and his mercenaries would be moved under the military.
    — Phil McCausland, NBC News, 27 June 2023
  • The spectral mercenary proved enough of a hit with fans that Marvel kept bringing him back for guest appearances and backup stories.
    — Rob Salkowitz, Forbes, 15 Apr. 2022
  • Ilyas was kidnapped as a child by an African mercenary and eventually sent to a German mission school.
    — Ron Charles, Washington Post, 23 Aug. 2022
  • In the clip below, a former Wagner mercenary assesses his work for the private army.
    — Matthew Carey, Deadline, 10 Mar. 2026
  • But that alliance didn't keep it from being razed by papal mercenaries, and by 1400, the monastery was all but abandoned.
    — Elizabeth Heath, Travel + Leisure, 3 July 2021
  • In general, his story is that he is killed while on a job as a mercenary and revived by Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon.
    — Los Angeles Times, 30 Mar. 2022
  • Damon played a European mercenary who is forced to team up with imperial Chinese forces to fend off an alien threat.
    — Zack Sharf, Variety, 12 July 2023
  • Globally, the mercenaries are on the rise everywhere.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 18 Mar. 2026
  • Hell’s Army mentions that the global rise of mercenaries is continuing.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 18 Mar. 2026
  • Then, a car bomb explosion opens the door for more deadly family dysfunction as mercenaries barge into the chapel, guns a-blazing.
    — Keith Nelson, Men's Health, 28 May 2023
  • While exploring a mysterious planet, a mercenary and group of killers now become the prey as a new breed of alien hunters pursue the ragtag team through dense jungle.
    — Chaise Sanders, Country Living, 13 May 2022

mercenary

2 of 2 adjective
  • His motives in choosing a career were purely mercenary.
  • Who once set us in the deep a password, lock and mercenary.
    — Timmy Straw, The New York Review of Books, 4 Apr. 2026
  • This is sort of the true mercenary level.
    — Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 3 Apr. 2026
  • She isn’t burdened by the need to shed a darker, more mercenary child-star past.
    — Doreen St. Félix, New Yorker, 14 Apr. 2026
  • But the mercenary, one-and-done teams aren’t the ones who chase the ultimate prize.
    — Sabreena Merchant, New York Times, 1 Apr. 2026
  • No investment, then mercenary mode kicks in for many pros.
    — Omar Kelly, Miami Herald, 12 Apr. 2026
  • All of this mercenary behavior led to a lot of hand-wringing over the years.
    — Rachel Swan, San Francisco Chronicle, 6 Dec. 2025
  • The art world is a mercenary place where grudges often give way to expedience.
    — Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker, 24 July 2023
  • The mercenary group has forces stationed across the border in eastern Libya.
    — WIRED, 22 Sep. 2023
  • Many of their clients don’t need a mercenary complainer so much as some basic instruction in how to complain.
    — Steve Hendrix, Anchorage Daily News, 26 Dec. 2022
  • Prigozhin has publicly accused Shoigu of trying to destroy the mercenary group.
    — Mary Ilyushina, Washington Post, 27 June 2023
  • The Bulls are not adopting the most mercenary mechanisms of tanking.
    — Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune, 27 Feb. 2026
  • Three years later, Fox commands his dad's mercenary band against Andross.
    — James Perkins Mastromarino, NPR, 24 June 2026
  • Members of the mercenary group played a major role in Russia’s fight for the city in eastern Ukraine.
    — Claire Parker, Washington Post, 2 June 2023
  • But Glazer is more interested in Nazi-ism as a mercenary act.
    — Jada Yuan, Washington Post, 18 Sep. 2023
  • Democracies don’t need mercenary armies.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 18 Mar. 2026
  • The mercenary leader may also have gone to Moscow, the president said.
    — Bloomberg, Fortune, 6 July 2023
  • Earth hires a mercenary company that gamifies the eviction process.
    — Erik Pedersen, Oc Register, 19 Sep. 2025
  • In many other places, the fighters have moved into other mercenary formations.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 18 Mar. 2026
  • Over the space of several days, a South African mercenary group evacuated some of them.
    — Ghazi Balkiz, CNN, 10 Oct. 2022
  • Early on, he was recorded recruiting prisoners to accept contracts with his mercenary force to fight on the front lines.
    — Noah Robertson, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 June 2023
  • The mercenary leader has a track record of misleading statements and did not provide evidence for his statements.
    — Josh Pennington, CNN, 30 Apr. 2023
  • Some of the movement of players is mercenary, some is opportunistic, some is a legacy of colonialism.
    — Louisa Thomas, New Yorker, 20 June 2026
  • The United States seems to be the only major nation that’s in the grip of such mercenary and selfish dogma.
    — Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 5 Aug. 2025
  • After the death of Russia’s Wagner chief, what happens to his mercenary army?
    — Ryan Fonseca, Los Angeles Times, 7 Sep. 2023
  • The show saw the heroes combine their powers to fight off the mysterious mercenary cult known as The Hand.
    — Jack Dunn, Variety, 4 Apr. 2026
  • Wagner mercenary group fighters in a photo said to be in Soledar and released Wednesday.
    — Patrick Smith, NBC News, 13 Jan. 2023
  • Are there any mercenary DEs out there the Niners would consider calling for the playoff run?
    — Cam Inman, Mercury News, 25 Dec. 2025
  • And mercenary pros could Benedict Arnold their former college teams by playing for a hated rival.
    — Zach Przystup, Baltimore Sun, 4 Apr. 2026
  • In the series, Sy’s mercenary embarks on a dangerous mission to rescue hostages in Libya.
    — Peter White, Deadline, 17 Dec. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mercenary.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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