Meaning & use
warfare
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Meanings
noununcountable
The activity of fighting a war, including the methods and weapons used.
Grammar: No plural or article in this sense: modern warfare, not a warfare.
Patterns
- warfare between someone
- warfare against someone
Drones have changed modern warfare.
The museum shows how warfare developed from swords to tanks.
Medieval warfare depended heavily on sieges.
noununcountablefigurative
A fierce struggle or competition between rival groups, even when no weapons are used.
Grammar: Often follows a describing word: economic warfare, legal warfare.
Patterns
- warfare between someone and someone
The two companies are locked in price warfare that is hurting both.
Political warfare filled the news in the weeks before the election.
The neighbors' warfare over the hedge lasted for years.
Common combinations
- modern warfare
- Modern warfare relies on technology as much as soldiers.
- guerrilla warfare
- The rebels fought a long campaign of guerrilla warfare in the mountains.
- chemical warfare
- The treaty banned chemical warfare.
- naval warfare
- She wrote her thesis on naval warfare in the eighteenth century.
- psychological warfare
- Spreading rumors was part of the army's psychological warfare.
- economic warfare
- Trade bans are sometimes described as economic warfare.
Synonyms and how they differ
- war
- War can mean a single conflict, whereas warfare mostly describes how fighting is carried out in general.
- combat
- Combat refers to actual fighting between forces, while warfare covers the whole style and organization of conflict.
- hostilities
- Hostilities is a formal plural noun for the fighting itself, and warfare is more general and uncountable.
- conflict
- Conflict is broader and can describe disagreements without any violence, but warfare always suggests organized fighting or a fierce struggle.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: warfare or welfare?
warfare vs welfare
Welfare means wellbeing or government support for people in need, and it sounds similar to warfare but has an almost opposite meaning.
Practice
Historians say the invention of gunpowder changed the nature of medieval ___.
Choose one answer.
Warfare is the way wars are fought, which gunpowder changed. Welfare is wellbeing, so it makes no sense here despite the similar sound.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “warfare”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.