cannon fodder

noun

: soldiers regarded or treated as expendable in battle

: an expendable or exploitable person, group, or thing

celebrities who have become cannon fodder for the tabloids

Examples of cannon fodder in a Sentence

The poorly trained forces are little more than cannon fodder.

Recent Examples on the Web Thousands of kids without your resources were sent to Vietnam in your stead to die as cannon fodder or return to America, disillusioned and beaten down by combat, only to be scorned by the nice, safe college kids. —

Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 12 May 2024 Every other normie, mostly underdeveloped in the edits, proved to be little more than cannon fodder. —

Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 16 Jan. 2024 These troops were not well trained or organized, and they have mainly been used as cannon fodder in consecutive waves of assaults on Ukrainian positions. —

Margarita Konaev, Foreign Affairs, 6 Sep. 2023 Most of the men are there as voluntary cannon fodder for the spectacle. —

Toby Muse, Rolling Stone, 3 Mar. 2024 See all Example Sentences for cannon fodder

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cannon fodder.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.