Why “voltigeur” is a great word
VOLTIGEUR — [Noun] A light-infantry soldier of the French army during the Napoleonic Wars, selected for agility and sharpshooting. Borrowed from French voltigeur, from voltiger ("to vault, to leap"), from Italian volteggiare ("to turn, to vault"). Earliest known use in English: 1800s. Unlike the grenadier, a soldier of imposing stature for the shock of assault, or the fusilier, a disciplined regular of the line, the voltigeur was a wraith of the periphery, a specialist in the fluid dance of skirmish. He is the flicker of a green uniform in an orchard's dapple, the crack of a single shot from behind a stone wall, the agile scout who could leap onto a trotting horse—a brief, brilliant attestation to individual skill within the era's grinding mass.