war
noun · verb
Simple meaning
An active struggle between competing entities.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wawrIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwɔɹ
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
An active struggle between competing entities
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.
The waging of armed conflict against an enemy
“Thousands of people were killed in the war.”
countablesometimes proscribed
Protracted armed conflict against irregular forces, particularly groups considered terrorists.
countable
A particular conflict of this kind.
chiefly us
A sustained campaign against a social problem, idea, set of values, etc.
verb
intransitive
To engage in conflict (may be followed by "with" to specify the foe).
transitive
To carry on, as a contest; to wage.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An active struggle between competing entities
Used this way, war 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
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use war
- “Thousands of people were killed in the war.”noun
- “War was declared in November but actual fighting did not begin until the following spring.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: active struggle between competing entities
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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.