Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use war in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

War means organized, large-scale, armed conflict between countries or between national, ethnic, or other sizeable groups, usually but not always involving active engagement of military forces. Example: “We had to ration our food because there was a war on.”

Examples of war by meaning

nounOrganized, large-scale, armed conflict between countries or between national, ethnic, or other sizeable groups, usually...

  • holy war; just war; civil war
  • Nobody can deny that war is a profitable business for those who like that kind of money.1922, Henry Ford, Samuel Crowther, chapter 17, in My Life and Work, Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., →OCLC
  • War is a racket.1935, Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket, page 1 & 7

nounProtracted armed conflict against irregular forces, particularly groups considered terrorists.

  • Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there.2001 Sept. 20, George W. Bush, speech before Congress, White House Archives

nounA sustained campaign against a social problem, idea, set of values, etc.

  • Yet ask those same people whether they would be willing, in cold blood, to start another civil war now to gain another similar possession, and not one man or woman would vote for the proposition.1906, William James, The Moral Equivalent of War

nounAny of a family of card games where all cards are dealt at the beginning of play and players attempt to capture them...

  • We played crazy eights, war, fifty-two card pickup.2004, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven

verbTo engage in conflict (may be followed by "with" to specify the foe).

  • In a paradox, language wars against the world.1979 April 28, Gerry McNamara, “Life for Art's Sake”, in Gay Community News, page 11

verbTo carry on, as a contest; to wage.

  • By God, that man does war honour.1970, Waterloo, spoken by Arthur Wellesley

More sentences with war

  • We had to ration our food because there was a war on.From the entry on
  • As a prisoner of war, he was interrogated by his enemy captors.From the entry prisoner of war
  • Righting all the wrongs of the war immediately will be impossible.From the entry right
  • Although not a direct cause, the border skirmish was certainly a collateral incitement for the war.From the entry collateral
  • During the war, his grandmother had worked at the Bletchley Park decoding station as a calculator.From the entry calculator
  • He’s a real history buff. He knows everything there is to know about the civil war.From the entry buff
  • We became friends in the war and remain friends to this day.From the entry friend
  • Interrogators have used many forms of torture to break prisoners of war.From the entry break
  • The war was ended by a catastrophic string of battles on the northern front.From the entry string
  • Fortunately, we can undo most of the damage to the system by the war.From the entry undo
  • Many lives were lost during the war. Her quick thinking saved many dogs' lives.From the entry life
  • The inscription records her defeat of the country's enemies in a costly war.From the entry defeat
  • According to international treaties, it is illegal to execute prisoners of war.From the entry execute
  • BP are putting petrol and diesel down in what could be the start of a price war.From the entry put down
  • After the war ended, the army saw a 50% slash in their operating budget.From the entry slash
  • He was charged with war crimes and brought to trial before the International Tribunal.From the entry trial
  • The war efforts were undermined by the constant bickering between the allies.From the entry undermine
  • He spent the remainder of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp.From the entry remainder
  • If a nuclear war ever breaks out, military facilities are likely to be nuked first.From the entry nuke
  • The user who started the edit war was blocked for a day to cool off.From the entry block
  • Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war.From the entry anniversary
  • My brother has been deaf since sustaining injuries in the war.From the entry deaf
  • Hanging is the punishment for one convicted of war crimes, there.From the entry hanging
  • That's the sort of woolly thinking that causes wars to start.From the entry woolly
  • That's the sort of wooly thinking that causes wars to start.From the entry wooly
  • It was condescended by the warring parties that they should lay down their arms and seek peace.From the entry condescend
  • Officials in the Firefly administration assure the Sylvanians they don't want war either.From the entry official
  • During the war, everyone's railings were taken away to make bombers.From the entry railing
  • As civil war continues in Iraq, the U.S. president's approval ratings are in freefall.From the entry freefall
  • George Washington, the first president of the United States, and commanding general during its war of independence.From the entry washington
  • When the map was redrawn after the war, our cousin found herself living in outlying territory.From the entry outlying
  • She got through the war, but cracked up when her sister died.From the entry crack up

Meaning of war

  1. noun Organized, large-scale, armed conflict between countries or between national, ethnic, or other sizeable groups, usually but not always involving active engagement of military forces.
  2. noun A particular conflict of this kind.
  3. noun Protracted armed conflict against irregular forces, particularly groups considered terrorists.

Full definition of war

Questions about war in a sentence

How do you use war in a sentence?
War is used as a noun and verb. For example: “We had to ration our food because there was a war on.”
What is a short sentence with war?
“War is a racket.”
What does war mean?
War means organized, large-scale, armed conflict between countries or between national, ethnic, or other sizeable groups, usually but not always involving active engagement of military forces.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: war (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use war in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/war. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.