Definition of "combatant"
combatant
noun
plural combatants
A person engaged in combat, often armed.
Quotations
Come hither, you that would be combatants:Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favour,Quite to forget this quarrel and the cause.
1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]
On the passage, one day, for the diversion of those gentlemen, all the boys were called on the quarter deck, and were paired proportionably, and then made to fight; after which the gentlemen gave the combatants from five to nine shillings each.
1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 3, in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, volume 1, London: for the author, page 112
If any combatant was struck down, and unable to recover his feet, his squire or page might enter the lists, and drag his master out of the press; but in that case the knight was adjudged vanquished […]
1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […]
adjective
comparative more combatant, superlative most combatant
Alternative form of combattant (“in heraldry: in a fighting position”)