Synonyms:
hostilities, belligerency
Meaning: fighting; acts of overt warfare; "the outbreak of hostilities"
Usage examples
The disputes soon took the form of hostilities.
Whereupon the hot-headed girl from Dixie suspended hostilities and became a very demure young woman.
The Corinthians also commenced hostilities with the Athenians for private quarrels of their own; but the rest of the Peloponnesians stayed quiet.
The Grassdale people liked us, and me and Andy declared a cessation of hostilities, never so much as floating the fly leaf of a rubber concession prospectus or flashing a Brazilian diamond while we was there.
The news was brought by a wandering hunter that a quarrel had arisen between the Shawnees and the Iroquois, and that the latter had recalled their braves from the frontier to defend their own villages in case of hostilities breaking out between them and the rival tribe.
The answer which he seems to infer would be given "by the whole family of man" is that such a government as he supposes "can maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes." And, therefore, he concluded that he was right in the judgment of "the whole family of man" in commencing hostilities against us.
It was, however, subject to ratification by the people at an election to be held on the fourth Thursday of May. She was in the mean time, like her Southern sisters, the object of Northern hostilities, and, having a common cause with them, properly anticipated the election of May by forming an alliance with the Confederate States, which was ratified by the Convention on the 25th of April.
Both sides had now, seemingly, had enough of fighting, and hostilities soon after entirely ceased, the savages marching back and leaving the whites masters of the field. Several of the trappers were slightly, but none dangerously, wounded. The Indians had paid dearly, in numbers killed, for their rascality. Finding the coast clear, Carson and his men set out and soon rejoined their comrades on the Arkansas River.