deserter

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a member of the armed forces who leaves a post or service without permission and intends not to return

   The soldier was arrested as a deserter after crossing the border in civilian clothes.

2. 2
   noun

   a person who abandons a cause, organization, duty, or companion, especially disloyally

   Party leaders branded him a deserter after he joined their opponents.

Formed in the seventeenth century from desert ("abandon") + -er, on the pattern of French deserteur. Desert in this sense comes from Latin deserere ("forsake, abandon"); it is historically distinct in pronunciation and meaning from the noun desert for an arid region.

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