war

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /wɔː/, US /wɔːr/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English werre, inherited from Old English wyrre or werre, recorded late in the Old English period,^[2][3] borrowed from Old Northern French werre, a variant of guerre,^[2][4] from Frankish *werra (“confusion, strife”).^[3][4] It is related to Old High German werra (“confusion, strife”) and werran (“to confuse”) (modern German verwirren (“to confuse, perplex”)),^[2][4][5] and to worse.^[4][6][7] Watkins derives it from Proto-Indo-European *wers- (“to confuse, mix up”);^[2][8] Barnhart and Klein compare Latin verrere (“to sweep”) and Hittite warsiya-, although Pokorny denies the connection.^[3][9] The Romance languages took the Germanic word (Spanish guerra, Italian guerra), perhaps because Latin bellum (“war”) was easily confused with bellus (“beautiful”).^[2][3] The verb comes from the noun, partly after Old Northern French werreier.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Large-scale armed conflict: late Old English wyrre, before 1121.^[3][2] Before this, Old English had no ordinary word for war;^[7] it rendered Latin bellum with gewin “struggle, strife”, and its poetic words were wig, guð, heaðo and hild.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word was applied to particular wars from about 1200,^[2] to a state of hostility between people in a community by the late 12th century,^[2] and to fighting as a profession, as in man-of-war, by the mid-14th century.^[2] In war and peace “at all times” is from the late 14th century.^[2] The verb “to make war” appears before 1160.^[3] Later derivatives include warfare (1456), warmonger (1590, in Spenser), war horse (1653), warpath (1775, American) and warhead (1898).^[3] The saying war is hell is recorded by 1850 and was credited to General Sherman by 1882.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1121 – late Old English wyrre.^[3]
• before 1160 – verb.^[3]
• c. 1200 – a particular war.^[2]
• mid-14th century – war as a profession.^[2]
• c. 1420 – warlike.^[3]
• 1456 – warfare.^[3]
• 1590 – warmonger (Spenser).^[3]
• 1653 – war horse.^[3]
• 1775 – warpath.^[3]
• 1898 – warhead.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A state of open armed conflict between nations, states or parties.
2. The period of such a conflict.
3. The art of fighting; military science.
4. Active hostility or rivalry.
5. A campaign against something harmful: a war on poverty.

Verb

1. To wage war; to fight.
2. To be in conflict; to contend.

Word family

• warless

Related words

• worse
• guerrilla
• warfare
• wurst
• liverwurst
• warrior

Usage notes

Scots and northern English have a separate war or waur meaning “worse”, from Old Norse verri.^[4][5][10]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House