squaddie Services' slang.
(ˈskwɒdɪ)
Also squaddy.
[f. squad n.1 + -ie, perh. influenced by swaddy n.]
A member of a squad; a private soldier; a recruit. Also transf.
| 1933 G. Ingram Stir xvi. 254 You get the screws and squaddies to shoot at us! Why, you're—well mad, you are. 1943 Hunt & Pringle Service Slang 61 Squaddie, recruit—new to the squad. 1959 I. Jefferies Thirteen Days viii. 105, I had a motley but effective army of luckless squaddies who had been selected by orderly sergeants. 1970 Daily Tel. (Colour Suppl.) 30 Oct. 25/4 Most of the Beatles have been seen several times, as have Danny Cohn-Bendit, Jean-Jacques Lebel, the CIA, of course, and drug squaddies with joss sticks and beards. 1978 J. B. Hilton Some run Crooked xi. 114 ‘It needn't have been a squaddy who'd lost the knife.’ ‘It was a soldier's knife.’ |