Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The branch of an army made up of units trained to fight on foot.
  • noun Soldiers armed and trained to fight on foot.
  • noun A unit, such as a regiment, of such soldiers.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Soldiery ✓ serving on foot, as distinguished from cavalry; that part of a military establishment using small-arms, and equipped for marching and fighting on foot, constituting the oldest of the “arms” into which armies are conventionally divided: as, a company, regiment, or brigade of infantry. Abbreviated infinitive
  • noun [As if directly ⟨ infant, n., 1, + -ry.] Infants in general; an assemblage of children.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A body of children.
  • noun (Mil.) A body of soldiers serving on foot; foot soldiers, in distinction from cavalry.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Soldiers who fight on foot (on land), as opposed to cavalry and other mounted units, regardless of external transport (e.g. airborne).
  • noun uncountable The part of an army consisting of infantry soldiers, especially opposed to mounted and technical troops
  • noun A regiment of infantry

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an army unit consisting of soldiers who fight on foot

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French infanterie, from Old French, from Old Italian infanteria, from infante, youth, foot soldier, from Latin īnfāns, īnfant-, infant; see infant.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French infanterie, from older Italian, possibly from Spanish infantería "foot soldiers, force composed of those too inexperienced or low in rank for cavalry," from infante "foot soldier," originally "a youth", either way from Latin infans '(child) who doesn't speak (yet)' (from in- 'non-' + fari 'to speak')

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Examples

  • JOULWAN: When you look at what we call infantry, boots on the ground, Marine and Army units, they're not 2.4 million.

    CNN Transcript Mar 18, 2007 2007

  • Personally, years in infantry made me really, really comfort with the AR plus it is very accurate.

    Rifle Shooting's 10 Most Significant Developments of the Decade 2009

  • Personally, years in infantry made me really, really comfort with the AR plus it is very accurate.

    Rifle Shooting's 10 Most Significant Developments of the Decade 2009

  • Yes, truck drivers, radio operators, cooks all serve in infantry units, but I'm quite sure personnel with other than an infantry or special forces MOS are not eligible, regardless of the circumstances.

    ROY CARTER SPANN 2010

  • Women are barred from ground jobs in infantry, armor and artillery units and are technically confined to support roles.

    The "Equal Opportunity War" in Iraq « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • Women are barred from ground jobs in infantry, armor and artillery units and are technically confined to support roles.

    2008 January 03 « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • The infantry is undergoing the last throes of the destruction of its regimental system, having found itself squeezed into 34 conventional regular infantry battalions plus three regular battalions of the Parachute Regiment.

    Tomorrow Is Always Too Late 2007

  • The infantry is undergoing the last throes of the destruction of its regimental system, having found itself squeezed into 34 conventional regular infantry battalions plus three regular battalions of the Parachute Regiment.

    Archive 2007-08-19 2007

  • George Patton called it "… the greatest battle implement ever devised," and it was our main infantry weapon in the last war we won.

    Firearms Superlatives, Part II 2007

  • "Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote.

    Boing Boing 2006

Comments

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  • Captured at Yorktown, "2 regiments artillery, 2 of guards, 2 of light-infantry, 7 of foot ("regiments of foot" were infantry)," which were enumerated separately from those German-speaking troops that served with the British: see jaegers.

    The "7 of foot" that were enumerated included the "17th, 23d, 33d, 45th, 71st, 76th, and 80th."

    October 29, 2007

  • Toddler soldiers :-(

    March 16, 2010

  • Whiskey for kids.

    March 16, 2010

  • The segment of the army "without speech" (infant).

    July 18, 2010