Word.ws English Dictionary

arsenal of democracy

arsenal of democracy noun: the United States of America, as supplier of extensive materiel support to U.S. allies during World War II; or post-war U.S. as the manufacturer and possessor of the greatest quantity of advanced military weaponry in the world, in the service of defending governments favouring the United States, mostly democracies.

Noun (1)

the arsenal of democracy

  1. (figuratively) The United States of America, as supplier of extensive materiel support to U.S. allies during World War II; or post-war U.S. as the manufacturer and possessor of the greatest quantity of advanced military weaponry in the world, in the service of defending governments favouring the United States, mostly democracies.
    • In a fireside shout Franklin Roosevelt this week told Business and Labor that they would have to speed up the job of making the U. S. the "arsenal of democracy".1941 January 6, “Diplomacy v. Defense”, in Time, retrieved 11 Jul 2014
    • The United States, he contends, is no longer the arsenal of democracy. Nor does it have a clear technological advantage over the Soviet Union.1985 July 6, Drew Middleton, "Books of the Times: Analysis of a Failure" (book review of The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam by Gen. Bruce Palmer Jr.), New York Times (retrieved 11...

Noun (2) capitalized: Arsenal of Democracy

Arsenal of Democracy

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of arsenal of democracy.

Forms of arsenal of democracy

alternative formArsenal of Democracy

Origin of arsenal of democracy

Introduced to wide usage (although probably not first used) by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in December, 1940.

Questions about arsenal of democracy

What does arsenal of democracy mean?
Arsenal of democracy means the United States of America, as supplier of extensive materiel support to U.S. allies during World War II; or post-war U.S. as the manufacturer and possessor of the greatest quantity of advanced military weaponry in the world, in the service of defending governments favouring the United States, mostly democracies.
What part of speech is arsenal of democracy?
Arsenal of democracy is a noun.

Words near arsenal of democracy in the dictionary

  1. arsemuncher
  2. arsemunchers
  3. arsemunches
  4. Arsen
  5. arsenal
  6. arsenal of democracy
  7. arsenal plane
  8. arsenal planes
  9. arsenal ship
  10. arsenals
  11. arsenamide

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arsenal of democracy (page history and authors); Arsenal of Democracy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “arsenal of democracy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/arsenal_of_democracy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.