What is the difference between mercenary and filibuster?
mercenary | filibuster |
Motivated by private gain.
* Dryden
A person employed to fight in an armed conflict who is not a member of the state or military group for which they are fighting and whose prime or sole motivation is private gain.
A freebooter, or mercenary soldier.
(US, politics) A delaying tactic, especially the use of long, often irrelevant speeches given in order to delay progress or the making of a decision, especially on the floor of the US Senate.
* 2010 , "An own goal on gay rights", The Economist , 14 Oct 2010:
(US, politics) A member of a legislative body causing such obstruction.
To take part in a private military action in a foreign country.
(US, politics) To use obstructionist tactics in a legislative body.
* 1919 , William Roscoe Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography ,
As nouns the difference between mercenary and filibuster
is that mercenary is a person employed to fight in an armed conflict who is not a member of the state or military group for which they are fighting and whose prime or sole motivation is private gain while filibuster is a freebooter, or mercenary soldier.As a adjective mercenary
is motivated by private gain.As a verb filibuster is
to take part in a private military action in a foreign country.mercenary
English
(wikipedia mercenary)Adjective
(en adjective)- For God forbid I should my papers blot / With mercenary lines, with servile pen.
Synonyms
* (motivated by private gain) greedy, venalNoun
(mercenaries)Synonyms
* SeeSee also
* soldierfilibuster
English
(wikipedia filibuster)Noun
(en noun)- 1890' ''These duties involved prodigious physical and mental exertion, in a climate deadly to Europeans. They also involved much voyaging in waters haunted by '''filibusters''' and buccaneers. But nothing appears to daunt Labat. As for the '''filibusters , he becomes their comrade and personal friend; – he even becomes their chaplain, and does not scruple to make excursions with them.'' — Lafcadio Hearn, ''
Two Years in the French West Indies.
- Then, last month, before the survey was finished and for reasons still unclear, the Democrats abruptly tried to attach a repeal of the law to the defence appropriations bill, a stratagem the Republicans defeated in a filibuster .
Synonyms
* (mercenary soldier) seeVerb
(en verb)Chapter 11.:
- But as the case had dragged on interminably, and he believed, and the world believed, and the Canadians themselves knew, that they intended to filibuster and postpone as long as possible, he took the common-sense way to a settlement.