gunboat diplomacy
noun
Simple meaning
The pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of military power.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
guhnbohtdihplohmuhseeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡʌnboʊtdɪpˈloʊməsi
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
idiomatic
The pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of military power.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of military power.
Used this way, gunboat diplomacy is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a military use: it belongs to service and operational language.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Military
- Historical writing
- News/reporting
- Government/politics
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.