the.com/mercenary

means Someone who fights or works purely for payment rather than belief, cause, or loyalty to any side.

from From Latin merces, meaning 'wages' or 'pay' — the same root that gives us 'merchandise' and 'commerce.' A mercenarius in Rome was simply a hireling, someone who worked for money. The word drifted into English through French by the 14th century, and it kept its original financial bluntness: no romance, no cause, just the transaction. The moral sneer in the word came later, once societies decided that fighting for a flag should be nobler than fighting for a wage — mercenary soldiers were the proof that it isn't always so.