''belligerent'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''belligerent'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250725214435-00-⌔

belligerent - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

belligerent (comparative more belligerent, superlative most belligerent)

• Engaged in warfare, warring.
• Eager to go to war, warlike.
• Of or pertaining to war.
• (by extension) Aggressively hostile, eager to fight.
  • ✤ And I think the facts are that Beijing is a belligerent bully jealous and envious of what Taiwan has accomplished- mainland China- that’s what I get out of all of this.¹
  • ✤ England were not allowed to give their chariot the momentum it had a week ago. It was stopped dead in its tracks by a belligerent Springboks defence that simply refused to yield.²
• Acting violently towards others.
• Uncooperative.

Noun

belligerent (plural belligerents)

• A state or other armed participant in warfare
  • ✤ The UN sent a treaty proposal to the belligerents.

Etymology

From Latin belligerans (“waging war”), present active participle of belligerō (“to wage war”), from belliger (“waging war, warlike”), from bellum (“war”) + -ger (from gerō (“to lead, wage, carry on”)).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, Australian) IPA: /bəˈlɪdʒ.ə.ɹənt/, [bəˈlɪdʒ.ə.ɹənt] ~ [bəˈlɪdʒ.ə.ɹn̩t]
  • Audio: 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /bəˈlɪd͡ʒ.ɚ.ənt/, [bəˈlɪd͡ʒ.ɚ.ənt] ~ [bəˈlɪd͡ʒ.ɹ̩.n̩t]
  • Audio (US): 🔊
• Hyphenation: bel‧li‧ger‧ent

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1999 August 5, Jesse Helms, quotee, 1:27 from the start, in USA: CHINA/TAIWAN TENSIONS MOUNTING ‎${}^{[1]}$, Associated Press, archived from the original on 31 January 2026 ‎${}^{[2]}$: ↩

2. 2019 November 3, Liam de Carme, “Boks, you beauties”, in Sunday Times ‎${}^{[3]}$: ↩

Link to original

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