From Middle English sergeant, sergeaunt, serjent, serjaunt, serjawnt, sergant, from Old French sergeant, sergent, serjant, sergient, sergant ("sergeant, servant"), from Medieval Latin servientem, accusative of serviens ("a servant, vassal, soldier, apparitor"), from Latin serviēns, present participle of serviō ("serve, be a slave to").

The shift from /vj/ > /dʒ/ was a regular development in Old French.

The fish is so called because of its stripes, supposed to resemble a sergeant's insignia of rank.

The pronunciation with /ɑɹ/ is due to a widespread development of Middle English er + consonant (see barn, start etc.). In sergeant, the spelling was standardised in one way, the pronunciation in another (compare clerk, derby in Commonwealth English, further parson vs. person, and varsity vs. university).

• (British) IPA: /ˈsɑː.d͡ʒənt/
• (America) IPA: /ˈsɑɹ.d͡ʒənt/

sergeant (plural sergeants)

1. (military) UK army rank with NATO code OR-6, senior to corporal and junior to warrant officer ranks.
2. The highest rank of noncommissioned officer in some non-naval military forces and police.
3. (legal, historical) A lawyer of the highest rank, equivalent to the doctor of civil law.
   • 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC ↗:

     All other sergeants and barristers indiscriminately (except in the Court of Common Pleas, where only sergeants are admitted) may take upon them the protection and defense of any suitors.

4. (UK, historical) A title sometimes given to the servants of the sovereign.

   sergeant surgeon, i.e. a servant, or attendant, surgeon

5. A bailiff.
6. A servant in monastic offices.
7. A fish, the cobia.
8. Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Athyma; distinct from the false sergeants.

• French: sergent
• German: Stabsunteroffizier, Feldwebel
• Italian: sergente
• Portuguese: sargento
• Russian: сержа́нт
• Spanish: sargento

1. Surname for a servant.