casus belli
/ˈkeɪ.səs ˈbɛl.aɪ/
casus belli noun: an act seen as justifying or causing a war; an act of war.
Noun
casus belli (plural casus belli or casus bellis)
- An act seen as justifying or causing a war; an act of war.
- In ancient times, repeatedly failing to pay tribute by a vassal state was often used as a casus belli by the patron.
- The Executive, however, can do many acts which would constitute a casus belli, and thus indirectly result in war; but this does not imply in the Executive a concurrent power to declare war, and the war which would result would be one declared by a foreign power.1897, Congressional Record, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 664
casus belli meaning in Tamil, Arabic, Indonesian and Persian
casus belli in Tamil
- போர்க்காரணம்
casus belli in Arabic
- act causing war
- ذَرِيعَةُ الْحَرْبِ ḏarīʕatu al-ḥarbi
casus belli in Indonesian
- act causing war
- casus belli
casus belli in Persian
- act causing war
- بهانهٔ جنگ bahâne-ye jang, کیسوس بللی keysus belli
More languagesFewer languages
- casus belli in Thai
- เหตุแห่งสงคราม hèet-hɛ̀ɛng-sǒng-kraam
Examples of casus belli in a sentence
- Algiers seethed, and this was the casus belli for the ‘ultras’ to attempt a general strike.1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York: Review Books, published 2006, page 309:
- Furthermore, if the French had airily waved away one potential casus belli, more than enough causes of potential conflict remained embedded in the Aix-la-Chapelle Treaty.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 138:
- Had Saddam taken only the Rumaila oil field and the Bubiyan and Warba islands, there would have been no casus belli.2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 290:
Forms of casus belli
| plural | casus belli |
|---|---|
| plural | casus bellis |
Origin of casus belli
From Latin cāsus (“occasion”) + bellī (“for war”, literally “of war”).
Questions about casus belli
- What does casus belli mean?
- Casus belli means an act seen as justifying or causing a war; an act of war.
- What is casus belli in Tamil?
- Casus belli in Tamil is போர்க்காரணம். See Casus belli meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use casus belli in a sentence?
- Algiers seethed, and this was the casus belli for the ‘ultras’ to attempt a general strike.
- What part of speech is casus belli?
- Casus belli is a noun.
- How do you pronounce casus belli?
- Casus belli is pronounced /ˈkeɪ.səs ˈbɛl.aɪ/.
- What is the plural of casus belli?
- The plural of casus belli is casus belli.
Words near casus belli in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: casus belli (page history and authors); casus belli (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-casus belli.wav.
Cite this entry: “casus belli.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/casus_belli. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.