Definitions

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

  • adjective Of, relating to, or befitting a soldier.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Like or befitting a soldier, especially in a moral sense: as, soldierly conduct.

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

  • adjective Like or becoming a real soldier; brave; martial; heroic; honorable; soldierlike.

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

  • adjective In the way of, or appropriate to, a soldier.

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

  • adjective (of persons) befitting a warrior

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From soldier +‎ -ly. Compare soldierlike.

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Examples

  • There is in the laager an utter absence of what we term soldierly discipline; men moved about, went and came in a free and easy fashion, just as I have seen them do a thousand times in diggers 'camps.

    Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) Letters from the Front A. G. Hales

  • They were as brave as any men who ever carried rifles, but they were so ignorant of drill that they could not even form into column or wheel to right or left in soldierly fashion.

    This Country of Ours: The Story of the United States Henrietta Elizabeth 1917

  • He was reclining; if he had arisen he would have displayed a frame at once to be called soldierly, though spare and hardly powerful.

    A Friend of Caesar A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. William Stearns Davis 1903

  • But I felt a kind of soldierly duty to somehow carry on in the face of hippie lassitude and hash torpor.

    ɘloЯ 2010

  • In 597 B.C., after his victory over Tsin, the King of Ts'u had, as previously narrated, declined to rear a barrow over the corpses slain, and had said: "No! the written or pictograph character for 'soldierly' is made up of two parts, one signifying 'stop,' and the other 'weapons.'"

    Ancient China Simplified Edward Harper Parker 1887

  • "I am proud and grateful that our young men and women have the kind of soldierly courage to turn a bad day for themselves into a better future for those who need their help."

    Thestar.com - Home Page 2010

  • "Very well, sir," -- and his tone was rough and overbearing, -- "then kindly recall your soldierly instincts to another little matter.

    My Lady of the North Randall Parrish 1890

  • Russell Braun was properly aggressive as Valentin; his baritone had a soldierly roughness rather than lyricism, and his duel to the death with Faust was elegantly executed.

    A Chance to Do It Over Heidi Waleson 2011

  • Others over the years have ranged from people gilding the soldierly lily to authors purporting to have been Holocaust survivors.

    ARTHUR REX CRANE 2010

  • Even his first wedding, in 1972, is a celebration of soldierly solidarity.

    Sanitized 9/11 Heroics Heidi Waleson 2011

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