sapper
/ˈsapə
/noun
1A soldier responsible for tasks such as building and repairing roads and bridges, laying and clearing mines, etc.This is extremely significant when you consider the reduction of the number of sappers in combat engineer companies....
- Without tackling these issues, we will not see the necessary synergy between several seemingly disparate Army cultures: the sapper, the topographic engineer, and the MP.
- A handful - their numbers are not known - served as bomb disposal sappers, working to disarm the weapons of destruction, not to inflict them on the innocent.
1.1British A private soldier in the Corps of Royal Engineers.In Britain private soldiers in the Royal Engineers are styled sappers, and the term is applied generally to any military engineer - what would in America be termed a combat engineer....
- But for those young sappers - as soldiers of the Royal Engineers are known - there was one big difference.
- Chris, 21, said he was happy to be back in his home town after a long stint in Iraq as a sapper with his Germany-based Royal Engineers unit.
Origin
Early 17th century: from the verb sap2 + -er1.