Word.ws English Dictionary

turf war

UK/ˈtɜːf wɔː/US/ˈtɚf woɹ/

turf war noun: a dispute over territory between rival gangs.

Noun

turf war (plural turf wars)

  1. A dispute over territory between rival gangs.
  2. (idiomatic) A fight or confrontation between two divisions or parties for access to resources or capital.
    • It's a fascinating distinction, and one that also has the neat effect of moving the debate on from the contentious territory of the SF/litfic turfwar into that of value-neutral literary theory.2014 July 18, Thomas Christie, Notional Identities: Ideology, Genre and National Identity in Popular Scottish Fiction Since the Seventies, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 202

Forms of turf war

pluralturf wars
alternative formturfwar

Origin of turf war

The phrase may have originated as a reference to the game of American football where two teams confront each other on a field of grass or turf.

Questions about turf war

What does turf war mean?
Turf war means a dispute over territory between rival gangs.
What part of speech is turf war?
Turf war is a noun.
How do you pronounce turf war?
Turf war is pronounced /ˈtɚf woɹ/ (US).
What is the plural of turf war?
The plural of turf war is turf wars.

Words near turf war in the dictionary

  1. turf skis
  2. turf spade
  3. turf spades
  4. turf toe
  5. turf toes
  6. turf war
  7. turf wars
  8. turf-fire
  9. turf-fires
  10. turf-roof
  11. turf-roofed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: turf war (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-turf war.ogg.

Cite this entry: “turf war.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/turf_war. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.