infantry

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 īnfāns (“child”); see there for more.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪnfəntɹi/

• Audio (Southern England)

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infantry (countable and uncountable, plural infantries)

1. Soldiers who fight on foot (on land), as opposed to cavalry and other mounted units, regardless of external transport (e.g. airborne).
2. (uncountable) The part of an army consisting of infantry soldiers, especially opposed to mounted and technical troops.
3. A regiment of infantry.
4. (colloquial, humorous) Infants; children.
   • 1887, Transactions of the Iowa State Horticultural Society, page 142:

     The next summer there was a crop of blackberries in the woods. I took wife and babies, supplied with lunch and horse feed; […] Wife took command of the infantry and I of the transportation. We were both soon calling loudly for assistance.

• infant

• (children): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary