What does "rifleman" mean?

A soldier trained to use a rifle as a primary weapon.

What is a synonym for "rifleman"?

Common synonyms include: air serviceman, amazon, archer, artilleryman, bersagliere, bowman.

noun

noun ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·College level

Noun

1
A soldier trained to use a rifle as a primary weapon.
"The riflemen had not been issued their weapons yet, and hence they trained with wooden mock-up rifles."
2
a male soldier whose weapon is a rifle wordnet
3
A person especially skilled in the use of a rifle.
"She was quite the rifleman and could pick off a squirrels with a .22 from across the field with amazing accuracy."
4
a man skilled in the use of a rifle wordnet
5
A small wrenlike insectivorous passerine bird endemic to New Zealand, Acanthisitta chloris, the titipounamu.

"The riflemen had not been issued their weapons yet, and hence they trained with wooden mock-up rifles."

From rifle + -man.

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