Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

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.