unknown soldier
noun
Simple meaning
The representative of military personnel who have died unidentified without proper burial, usually in war.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhnnohnsohljerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ənˈnoʊnˈsoʊldʒɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The representative of military personnel who have died unidentified without proper burial, usually in war.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The representative of military personnel who have died unidentified without proper burial, usually in war.
Used this way, unknown soldier is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. This is a military use: it belongs to service and operational language.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Military
- Historical writing
- News/reporting
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.