thumb|upright|[[Geronimo, perhaps the most famous Apache warrior.]]

A warrior is a person expierienced in or capable of engaging in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based society that recognizes a separate warrior class.
According to the Random House Dictionary, the term warrior has two meanings. The first literal use refers to "a person engaged or experienced in warfare." The second figurative use refers to "a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics."

Overview

In tribal societies engaging in endemic warfare, warriors often form a caste or class of their own. In feudalism, the vassals essentially form a military or warrior class, even if in actual warfare, peasants may be called to fight as well. In some societies, warfare may be so central that the entire people (or, more often large parts of the male population) may be considered warriors, for example in the Iron Age Germanic tribes or the Medieval Rajput.

Professional warriors are people who are paid money for engaging in military campaigns and fall into one of two categories: Soldiers, when fighting on behalf of their own state; or mercenaries, when offering their services commercially and unrelated to their own nationality. The classification of somebody who is involved in acts of violence may be a matter of perspective, and there may be disagreement whether a given person is a hooligan, gangster, terrorist, rebel, freedom fighter, mercenary or a soldier.

Warrior code

In many societies in which a specialized warrior class exists, specific codes of conduct (ethical codes) are instituted in order to ensure that the warrior class is not corrupted or otherwise dangerous to the rest of society. Warrior codes often have common features and usually value honour in the forms of faith, loyalty and courage. Examples include the Nine Noble Virtues of Germanic folklore, medieval knights' code of chivalry, the Kshatriya code of Dharma in India, the system of values of ancient Armenian army or Japan's samurai class which uses a warrior code known as Bushido (The Way Of The Warrior) and xiá in China. See also noblesse oblige.

Warriors' honor is dependent on following the code. Common virtues in warrior code are mercy, courage and loyalty.

Warrior cultures

A warrior culture is a culture that heavily emphasizes battle and war and greatly prizes feats of arms. Warrior cultures often incorporate a cult of personality around military leaders, are ruled by an elite warrior class, and may even have a warfare based economy.
Feudal societies are not always warrior cultures, since although feats of arms are prized, there is not necessarily an emphasis on battle and war. In some feudal societies, the soldiery was provided through conscription of the peasant class. It could be argued that the modern Israelis are a warrior-race, as both men and women are trained to fight, and all citizens must undergo military training at some point.

Military castes

Many cultures and states have castes, estates or social groups dedicated to warfare.
This includes the kshatriya caste in ancient India, the samurai class in feudal Japan, and nobility (especially knighthood) in feudal Europe.

Women as warriors

There are references to occasional female warriors from antiquity, mostly as an exception or a curiosity. Religious traditions prior to historical records feature deities, often among their earliest, that include a fierce warrior goddess prior to displacement by warrior gods. The lioness often is associated with the goddesses and observation of the cooperative hunting techniques of lionesses may have influenced the symbolic association. Myths are the vestiges of more ancient religious traditions that have been lost or purposely were kept secret from outsiders and never recorded. One later example of a group of fighting women is the legend of the Amazons recorded in Classical Greek mythology.