War \War\, n. [OE. & AS. werre; akin to OHG. werra scandal, quarrel, sedition, werran to confound, mix, D. warren, G. wirren, verwirren, to embroil, confound, disturb, and perhaps to E. worse; cf. OF. werre war, F. querre, of Teutonic origin. Cf. Guerrilla, Warrior.] 1. A contest between nations or states, carried on by force, whether for defence, for revenging insults and redressing wrongs, for the extension of commerce, for the acquisition of territory, for obtaining and establishing the superiority and dominion of one over the other, or for any other purpose; armed conflict of sovereign powers; declared and open hostilities. Men will ever distinguish war from mere bloodshed. --F. W. Robertson. Note: As war is the contest of nations or states, it always implies that such contest is authorized by the monarch or the sovereign power of the nation. A war begun by attacking another nation, is called an offensive war, and such attack is aggressive. War undertaken to repel invasion, or the attacks of an enemy, is called defensive. 2. (Law) A condition of belligerency to be maintained by physical force. In this sense, levying war against the sovereign authority is treason. 3. Instruments of war. [Poetic] His complement of stores, and total war. --Prior. 4. Forces; army. [Poetic] On their embattled ranks the waves return, And overwhelm their war. --Milton. 5. The profession of arms; the art of war. Thou art but a youth, and he is a man of war from his youth. --1 Sam. xvii. 33. 6. a state of opposition or contest; an act of opposition; an inimical contest, act, or action; enmity; hostility. ``Raised impious war in heaven.'' --Milton. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. --Ps. lv. 21. Civil war, a war between different sections or parties of the same country or nation. Holy war. See under Holy. Man of war. (Naut.) See in the Vocabulary. Public war, a war between independent sovereign states. War cry, a cry or signal used in war; as, the Indian war cry. War dance, a dance among savages preliminary to going to war. Among the North American Indians, it is begun by some distinguished chief, and whoever joins in it thereby enlists as one of the party engaged in a warlike excursion. --Schoolcraft. War field, a field of war or battle. War horse, a horse used in war; the horse of a cavalry soldier; especially, a strong, powerful, spirited horse for military service; a charger. War paint, paint put on the face and other parts of the body by savages, as a token of going to war. ``Wash the war paint from your faces.'' --Longfellow. War song, a song of or pertaining to war; especially, among the American Indians, a song at the war dance, full of incitements to military ardor. War whoop, a war cry, especially that uttered by the American Indians.

2. Especially: An adult male person; a grown-up male person, as distinguished from a woman or a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. --I Cor. xiii. 11. Ceneus, a woman once, and once a man. --Dryden. 3. The human race; mankind. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion. --Gen. i. 26. The proper study of mankind is man. --Pope. 4. The male portion of the human race. Woman has, in general, much stronger propensity than man to the discharge of parental duties. --Cowper. 5. One possessing in a high degree the distinctive qualities of manhood; one having manly excellence of any kind. --Shak. This was the noblest Roman of them all . . . the elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world ``This was a man!'' --Shak. 6. An adult male servant; also, a vassal; a subject. Like master, like man. --Old Proverb. The vassal, or tenant, kneeling, ungirt, uncovered, and holding up his hands between those of his lord, professed that he did become his man from that day forth, of life, limb, and earthly honor. --Blackstone. 7. A term of familiar address often implying on the part of the speaker some degree of authority, impatience, or haste; as, Come, man, we 've no time to lose! 8. A married man; a husband; -- correlative to wife. I pronounce that they are man and wife. --Book of Com. Prayer. every wife ought to answer for her man. --Addison. 9. One, or any one, indefinitely; -- a modified survival of the Saxon use of man, or mon, as an indefinite pronoun. A man can not make him laugh. --Shak. A man would expect to find some antiquities; but all they have to show of this nature is an old rostrum of a Roman ship. --Addison. 10. One of the piece with which certain games, as chess or draughts, are played. Note: Man is often used as a prefix in composition, or as a separate adjective, its sense being usually self-explaining; as, man child, man eater or maneater, man-eating, man hater or manhater, man-hating, manhunter, man-hunting, mankiller, man-killing, man midwife, man pleaser, man servant, man-shaped, manslayer, manstealer, man-stealing, manthief, man worship, etc. Man is also used as a suffix to denote a person of the male sex having a business which pertains to the thing spoken of in the qualifying part of the compound; ashman, butterman, laundryman, lumberman, milkman, fireman, showman, waterman, woodman. Where the combination is not familiar, or where some specific meaning of the compound is to be avoided, man is used as a separate substantive in the foregoing sense; as, apple man, cloth man, coal man, hardware man, wood man (as distinguished from woodman). Man ape (Zo["o]l.), a anthropoid ape, as the gorilla. Man at arms, a designation of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for a soldier fully armed. Man engine, a mechanical lift for raising or lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (Mining), a contrivance by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft. It consists of a series of landings in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A man steps from a landing to a shelf and is lifted or lowered to the next landing, upon which he them steps, and so on, traveling by successive stages. Man Friday, a person wholly subservient to the will of another, like Robinson Crusoe's servant Friday. Man of straw, a puppet; one who is controlled by others; also, one who is not responsible pecuniarily. Man-of-the earth (Bot.), a twining plant ({Ipom[oe]a pandurata}) with leaves and flowers much like those of the morning-glory, but having an immense tuberous farinaceous root. Man of war. (a) A warrior; a soldier. --Shak. (b) (Naut.) See in the Vocabulary. To be one's own man, to have command of one's self; not to be subject to another.

look up a word or phrase