From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdeserterde‧sert‧er /dɪˈzɜːtə $ -ˈzɜːrtər/ noun [countable] PMAa soldier who leaves the army, navy etc without permission
Examples from the Corpus
deserter• Security along the frontier would be strengthened and information likely to lead to the capture of criminals and deserters would be exchanged.• But of course cowards were treated as deserters, and shot.• Moreover, its ranks have been increasingly swelled by deserters from social behaviourism - an evidently liberal position.• The party's share of the vote crawled up to barely 35 percent, thanks largely to Lib Dem deserters.• On March 6 pay bonuses were announced for all soldiers and an amnesty was declared for deserters and draft dodgers.• The remainder of the grief-stricken deserters were duly punished.• Last war, men who did what he done, they called them deserters.• Only 120 of the 3400 rebels taken prisoner were executed and at least 40 of these were deserters from the royal army. 