military: [16] Military traces its history back to Latin mīles ‘soldier’, a word possibly of Etruscan origin. Its derived adjective mīlitāris entered English via French militaire. Also based on mīles was the verb mīlitāre ‘serve as a soldier’, which has given English militant [15] and militate [17], a verb whose meaning has changed sharply over the centuries: at first it was used in the same way as its Latin ancestor, but then it developed via ‘conflict with’ to ‘be evidence against’, and finally, in the 20th century, to ‘make unlikely’. Militia [16] comes from Latin militia ‘warfare’, another derivative of mīles.
