warlike

Etymology

It is formed from English war + -like.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the Middle English form as werlik, from werre (“war”) and lik (“like”).^[7] The OED compares warly.^[2] War goes back through that Middle English word and Old French werre, a northern form of guerre, to Frankish *werra.^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a people or the like, eager to wage war or skilled in it: 1488, in Hary's Wallace, a text the OED dates to about 1478.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century,^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 15th century,^[7] and Dictionary.com to 1375–1425.^[5] Etymonline notes an earlier adjective fighti of the same sense, from the mid-13th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word began with the sense of a people's disposition and of a martial air, both in the same 15th-century text,^[2] and very soon also meant equipped, armed or fortified for war.^[2][7][4] That sense, said of people, has since died out,^[7][4] while the phrase warlike stores keeps the use for supplies.^[2][7] From the 16th century it extended to whatever belongs to war or to a soldier: of war generally in 1538, in Elyot's dictionary,^[2] and of a warrior before 1522, in Douglas's Virgil.^[2] Etymonline's date for "of or pertaining to war" is the 1560s.^[3] Johnson (1755) kept two senses, fit or disposed for war and military.^[6] From 1584 it was used without literal fighting, of conflict or polemic,^[2] and in the early 20th century it came to mean favouring or threatening war, or hostile.^[4][9]

Timeline

• 1488 – inclined to war, skilled in war; also having a martial character.^[2]
• before 1500 – equipped or armed for war, in Andrew of Wyntoun.^[2][4]
• before 1522 – of or characteristic of a warrior, in G. Douglas.^[2]
• 1538 – of or relating to battle or war, in Elyot.^[2]
• 1581 – adverb, in war (obsolete by 1632), in Mulcaster.^[2]
• 1584 – of conflict or dispute, without literal war; polemical, in Cartwright.^[2]
• early 20th century – favouring or threatening war; hostile.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Eager for or skilled in war; belligerent: a warlike tribe of the northern hills.^{[2][7][10][9]}
2. Of, relating to or used in war; martial, military: warlike preparations along the frontier.^{[2][7][10][9]}
3. Threatening war; hostile: a warlike speech from the new minister.^[9][4][10]
4. Of or typical of a soldier or warrior.^[2][7][4]
5. Combative or quarrelsome, without any literal fighting.^[2]
6. (obsolete) Ready for war; equipped to fight.^[7][4]

Word family

• unwarlike

Related words

• war
• warly
• warrior
• warfare

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins