combat
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Fighting, especially between armed forces; also to try to stop something bad.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kahmbatSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɑmbæt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A battle, a fight (often one in which weapons are used).
A struggle for victory
verb
intransitive
To fight (with); to struggle for victory (against).
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A battle, a fight (often one in which weapons are used).
Used this way, combat is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- battle , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use combat
- “The Kurds are combating Iraqi troops in Northern Iraq.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Loss of military equipment in battle.
Altitude above which a plane cannot climb faster than a given rate.
A mental disorder caused by stress of active warfare.
A casualty to military personnel resulting from combat.
Intelligence that is required for the planning and conduct of tactical operations.
A mission to capture or defend something.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- fighternoun
- deploymentnoun
- infantrynoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.