militia
noun
Simple meaning
Civilians trained as soldiers but not part of the regular army.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
muhlishuhSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
məˈlɪʃə
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
Civilians trained as soldiers but not part of the regular army
An army of trained civilians, which may be an official reserve army, called upon in time of need, the entire able-bodied population of a state which may also be called upon, or a private force not under government control.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Civilians trained as soldiers but not part of the regular army
Used this way, militia 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
- Technical/specialist writing
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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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: civilians trained as soldiers but not part of the regular army
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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.