evzone

plural evzones · plural evzonoi · plural evzoni

1. A member of the Greek presidential guard.
2. An infantryman of a select corps of the Greek army.

   The best-paid Greek soldiers are the Evzonoi, their pay amounting to 12 lepta a day extra (that is to say, to 27 lepta net).

   1913, Percy Falcke Martin, Greece of the Twentieth Century, page 98

   4 more examples

   The soldiers seen at various stations belong to the corps of the Greek army that proved itself most effective in the recent war, the Evzonoi.

   1905, Burton Holmes, The Wonders of Thessaly: The Burton Holmes Lectures: The Olympian Games in Athens; Grecian Journeys; The Wonders of Thessaly, page 242

   All this time little bands of rounded-up Evzones and men of the other regiment of the garrison were being brought in, together with news of the French losses.

   1918, George Ward Price, The Story of the Salonica Army, page 227

   That's an evzone on our cover this month — and an evzone, as you probably know, is a Greek soldier of a certain kind. Recruited from mountain districts of Greece, the evzones make up rifle units in the Greek Army — but are better known to tourists as the skirted lads who make up the Royal Palace Guard.

   1953 April, “Our Cover”, in The Rotarian, page 4

   The Evzones not only halted the invasion, but drove the Italians out of Greece and, by the onset of winter, occupied the southern quarter of Albania.

   2010, Richard H. Kraemer, The Secret War in the Balkans: A WWII Memoir, page 107