Etymology

Borrowing from Latin mīlitāre ‎(“to serve in the army”). It was likely borrowed sometime from roughly the mid-3rd century onwards (when contact between Goths and Romans intensified due to the Goths reaching the Dacian frontier in their southward migrations) to denote the semantic difference between Gothic-style warfare (for which there existed a native word 𐌳𐍂𐌰𐌿𐌷𐍄𐌹𐌽𐍉𐌽 ‎(drauhtinōn)) and the kind of army service Goths would have experienced (as auxiliaries or otherwise) in the Roman army.