sword; Mars, Bellona, grim visaged war, horrida bella [Lat.];
bloodshed.
appeal to arms, appeal to the sword; ordeal of battle; wager of
battle; ultima ratio regum [Lat.], arbitrament of the sword.
battle array, campaign, crusade, expedition, operations;
mobilization; state of siege; battlefield, theater of operations &c
(arena) 728; warpath.
art of war, tactics, strategy, castrametation†; generalship;
soldiership; logistics; military evolutions, ballistics, gunnery;
chivalry.
gunpowder, shot.
battle, tug of war &c (contention) 720; service, campaigning,
active service, tented field; kriegspiel [G.], Kriegsspiel [G.]; fire
cross, trumpet, clarion, bugle, pibroch†, slogan; war-cry, war-whoop;
battle cry, beat of drum, rappel, tom-tom; calumet of war; word of
command; password, watchword; passage d-armes [Fr.].
war to the death, war to the knife; guerre a mort [Fr.], guerre a
outrance [Fr.]; open war, internecine war, civil war.
V. arm; raise troops, mobilize troops; raise up in arms; take up the
cudgels &c 720; take up arms, fly to arms, appeal to arms, fly to the
sword; draw the sword, unsheathe the sword; dig up the hatchet, dig up
the tomahawk; go to war, wage war, let slip the dogs of war [Julius
Caesar]; cry havoc; kindle the torch of war, light the torch of war;
raise one's banner, raise the fire cross; hoist the black flag; throw
away, fling away the scabbard; enroll, enlist; take the field; take the
law into one's own hands; do battle, give battle, join battle, engage
in battle, go to battle; flesh one's sword; set to, fall to, engage,
measure swords with, draw the trigger, cross swords; come to blows,
come to close quarters; fight; combat; contend &c 720; battle with,
break a lance with.
[pirates engage in battle] raise the jolly roger, run up the jolly
roger.
serve; see service, be on service, be on active service; campaign;
wield the sword, shoulder a musket, smell powder, be under fire; spill
blood, imbrue the hands in blood; on the warpath.
carry on war, carry on hostilities; keep the field; fight the good
fight; fight it out, fight like devils, fight one's way, fight hand to
hand; sell one's life dearly; pay the ferryman's fee.
Adj. contending, contentious &c 720; armed, armed to the teeth, armed
cap-a-pie; sword in hand; in arms, under arms, up in arms; at war with;
bristling with arms; in battle array, in open arms, in the field;
embattled; battled.
unpacific†, unpeaceful†; belligerent, combative, armigerous†,
bellicose, martial, warlike; military, militant; soldier-like,
soldierly.
chivalrous; strategical, internecine.
Adv. flagrante bello [Lat.], in the thick of the fray, in the cannon's
mouth; at the sword's point, at the point of the bayonet.
Int. vae victis! [Lat.], to arms!, to your tents O Israel!,
Phr. the battle rages; a la guerre comme a la guerre [Fr.]; bis peccare
in bello non licet [Lat.]; jus gladii [Lat.]; my voice is still for war
[Addison]; 'tis well that war is so terrible, otherwise we might grow
fond of it [Robert E.
Lee]; my sentence is for open war [Milton]; pride, pomp, and
circumstance of glorious war [Othello]; the cannons have their bowels
full of wrath [King John]; the cannons aspit forth their iron
indignation [King John]; the fire-eyed maid of smoky war [Henry IV];
silent leges inter arma [Lat.] [Cicero]; si vis pacem para bellum
[Lat.].