War of the Spanish Succession
- proper noun
:
Guerra de Sucesión Española
- Known to history as the "War of the Spanish Succession,"
- the War of the Spanish Succession (1702)
Examples
-
After the War of the Spanish Succession, Naples was ceded in 1713 to Austria, and Sicily to Savoy.
-
The War of the Spanish Succession continued for another decade, and a century would pass before France again challenged the Continental balance of power.
-
This trade collapsed by 1715 after the Franco-Spanish alliance maintained during the War of the Spanish Succession broke down.
Academic text (2004) -
Earlier, the U.K. government had used a similar approach to finance the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13), mostly at interest rates of 8-10 percent and with heavy use of tontines and lotteries.
Academic text (2018) -
The War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1714.
Surface Forms
Morphology
war + of + the + Spanish + succession
The meaning 'a war about who should inherit the Spanish throne' is directly compositional from 'war' + 'Spanish' + 'succession' and a B1 learner who knows these words can infer it refers to a conflict over succession. The construction 'War of the X Succession' is a common, regular naming pattern (found cross-linguistically), so the sense is transparent rather than idiomatic or metaphorical.
Etymology
War of the Spanish Succession takes its name from a real fight after Spain's king died without children. Many powerful rulers tried to take his place, like a tug of war over an empty throne, so the name means a war about who would 'inherit' the Spanish 'throne'.
