Hoplite

//ˈhɒplaɪt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A heavily-armed infantry soldier of Ancient Greece, wielding a one-handed spear and an aspis. historical

    "[…] it was in the line of "hoplites" that the mass of citizen-soldiers were to be found."

Example

More examples

"[…] it was in the line of "hoplites" that the mass of citizen-soldiers were to be found."

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ὁπλίτης (hoplítēs, “heavily armed foot-soldier”), from ὅπλον (hóplon, “arms, armor, weapon”) (from which English hopl-). Compare Latin hoplomachus (“gladiator”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.