Word definition: war

Etimology

From Middle English werre, from Late Old English werre, wyrre (“armed conflict”), from Old Northern French werre (compare modern French guerre), from Medieval Latin werra, from Frankish *werru (“confusion; quarrel”), from Proto-Indo-European *wers- (“to mix up, confuse, beat, thresh”). Gradually displaced native Old English beadu, hild, ġewinn, orleġe, wīġ, and many others as the general term for "war" during the Middle English period. Related to Old High German werra (“confusion, strife, quarrel”) and German verwirren (“to confuse”), but not to Wehr (“defense”). Also related to Old Saxon werran (“to confuse, perplex”), Dutch war (“confusion, disarray”), West Frisian war (“confusion”), Old English wyrsa, wiersa (“worse”), Old Norse verri (“worse, orig. confounded, mixed up”), Italian guerra (“war”). There may be a connection with worse and wurst.

noun

Examples

holy war; just war; civil war

Come on, let vs deale wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to passe that when there falleth out any warre, they ioyne also vnto our enemies, and fight against vs, and so get them vp out of the land.

And when yee shall heare of warres, and rumors of warres, be yee not troubled: For such things must needs be, but the end shall not be yet.

War is indeed a fearful thing and the more I see it the more dreadful it appears.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our Country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out... You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war.

I've been where you are now and I know just how you feel. It's entirely natural that there should beat in the breast of every one of you a hope and desire that some day you can use the skill you have acquired here. Suppress it! You don't know the horrible aspects of war. I've been through two wars and I know. I've seen cities and homes in ashes. I've seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is hell!

Here Lee and Longstreet stood during most of the fighting [at Fredericksburg], and it is told that, on one of the Federal repulses from Marye's Hill, Lee put his hand upon Longstreet's arm and said, "It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it."

Nobody can deny that war is a profitable business for those who like that kind of money. War is an orgy of money, just as it is an orgy of blood.

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives... Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket—and are safely pocketed.

War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war brings it home to the individual that he is not altogether an individual.

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.

From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:WAR IS PEACEFREEDOM IS SLAVERYIGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

War, huh, Good God, y'all!What is it good for?Absolutely nothing...

War. War never changes. The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower. But war never changes.

Edward Wilson, the inventor of the field of sociobiology, once wrote that "war is embedded in our very nature". This is a belief commonly held not just by sociobiologists but also by anthropologists and other students of human behaviour. They base it not only on the propensity of modern man to go to war with his neighbours but also on observations of the way those who still live a pre-agricultural "hunter-gatherer" life behave... Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine... One thing that is true, though, is that murder rates have fallen over the centuries... Modern society may not have done anything about war. But peace is a lot more peaceful.

All human tribes glad token seeIn the close of the wars of Grant and Lee.

A second challenge will be to implement, with our allies, a plan of stability in the Balkans, so that the region's bitter ethnic problems can no longer be exploited by dictators and Americans do not have to cross the Atlantic again to fight in another war.

a war of succession... a war of attrition... the Cold War... World War III...

Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.

"...These wars are not going away. This is at least a generational struggle."

the Great Emu War... the Global War on Terrorism...

The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party... Ask all our millions, north and south, whether they would vote now to have our war for the Union expunged from history... and probably hardly a handful of eccentrics would say yes. Those ancestors, those efforts, those memories and legends, ar the most ideal part of what we now own together, a sacred spiritual possession worth more than all the blood poured out. Yet ask those same people whether they would be willing, in cold blood, to start another civil war now to gain another similar possession, and not one man or woman would vote for the proposition.

the War on Poverty... the War on Drugs... the War on Christmas...

price wars... Cola Wars... format wars...

turf war... gang war... Castellammarese War...

flame war... edit war...

The God of Love himſelf inhabits there,With all his rage, and dread, and grief, and care,His complement of ſtores, and total war...

On thir imbattelld ranks the Waves return,And overwhelm thir Warr

We played crazy eights, war, fifty-two card pickup. Rudy flipped the whole deck across the table at me and the cards sailed to the floor, kings, queens, deuces.

Related words

verb

Examples

...to war the Scot, and borders to defend...

And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses, and they slew all the males

Once more vnto the Breach,Deare friends, once more...Be Coppy now to men of groſſer blood,And teach them how to Warre.

This vein of reflection, warring with his inner knowledge that he had been driven by fear and hatred . . ., produced an exhausting whirl in his thoughts.

People keep on learning Soldiers keep on warring World keep on turning 'Cause it won't be too long

In a paradox, language wars against the world.

[…], that thou by them mighteſt warre a good warfare, […].

Related words