war

Etymology

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”). Displaced native Old English ġewinn. Related to Old High German werra (“confusion, strife, quarrel”) and German verwirren (“to confuse”), Old Saxon werran (“to confuse, perplex”), Dutch war (“confusion, disarray”), West Frisian war (“defense, self-defense, struggle", also "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

1. (uncountable) Organized, large-scale, armed conflict between countries or between national, ethnic, or other sizeable groups, usually but not always involving active engagement of military forces.
   holy war... just war... civil war...
   War is indeed a fearful thing and the more I see it the more dreadful it appears. 1854, Prince George, letter to his wife from Crimea
   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. 1864 Sept. 12, William Tecumseh Sherman, letter to the mayor of Atlanta & al.
   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! 1879 June 19, William Tecumseh Sherman, speech to the Michigan Military Academy
   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." 1907, Edward Porter Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate, page 302
   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. 1935, Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket, page 1 & 7
   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. 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. III
   Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die. 1944 June 27, Herbert Hoover, speech to the Republican National Convention
   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 PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, page 3
   War, huh, Good God, y'all! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing... 1969, “War”, in Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong (lyrics), War & Peace, performed by Edwin Starr
   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. 1997, Ron Perlman, Fallout
   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 (and, indeed, with people halfway around the world, given the chance) 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. 2013 July 20, "Old Soldiers?", The Economist, Vol. 408, No. 8845
2. (countable) A particular conflict of this kind.
   All human tribes glad token see In the close of the wars of Grant and Lee. 1865, Herman Melville, The Surrender at Appomattox
   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. 1999 Nov. 8, Bill Clinton, speech at Georgetown University
   a war of succession... a war of attrition... the Cold War... World War III...
3. (countable, sometimes proscribed) Protracted armed conflict against irregular forces, particularly groups considered terrorists.
   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. 2001 Sept. 20, George W. Bush, speech before Congress
   ...These wars are not going away. This is at least a generational struggle. 2021 Sept. 8, Seth G. Jones, quoted in Chris Moody, "Twenty Years after 9/11, Did US Win Its ‘War on Terror’?" Al-Jazeera
   the Great Emu War... the Global War on Terrorism...
4. (countable, by extension) Any protracted conflict, particularly
   1. (chiefly US) Campaigns against various social problems.
      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 (were such a thing possible) 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. 1906, William James, The Moral Equivalent of War
      the War on Poverty... the War on Drugs... the War on Christmas...
   2. (business) A protracted instance of fierce competition in trade.
      price wars... Cola Wars... format wars...
   3. (crime) A prolonged conflict between two groups of organized criminals, usually over organizational or territorial control.
      turf war... gang war... Castellammarese War...
   4. (Internet) An argument between two or more people with opposing opinions on a topic or issue.
      flame war... edit war...
5. (obsolete, uncountable) An assembly of weapons; instruments of war.
6. (obsolete) Armed forces.
7. (uncountable, card games) Any of a family of card games where all cards are dealt at the beginning of play and players attempt to capture them all, typically involving no skill and only serving to kill time.
   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. 2004, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven

verb

1. (intransitive) To engage in conflict (may be followed by "with" to specify the foe).
   ...to war the Scot, and borders to defend... 1595, Samuel Daniel, The First Four Books of the Civil Wars
   And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses, and they slew all the males 1611, King James Bible, Book of Numbers, 31:7
   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. 1882, George Bernard Shaw, chapter 14, in Cashel Byron's Profession
   People keep on learning Soldiers keep on warring World keep on turning 'Cause it won't be too long 1973, Stevie Wonder (lyrics and music), “Higher Ground”, in Innervisions
2. (transitive) To carry on, as a contest; to wage.