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Glite Dictionary
Central Powers

Central Powers

1 7.3
A group led by Germany and Austria-Hungary fighting the Allies in World War I
  • proper noun
translation icon : Potencias Centrales
  • In World War I, the Central Powers included Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire.
  • struggle against the Central Powers

This week, two of the Central Powers fight each other in the field.

Examples

  • Several groups, deprived of states which they acknowledged as homelands, offered to form military units of varying size, affiliated with one or all of the Allies in the common struggle against the Central Powers.

    Academic text (1991)

  • Only after the Central Powers are vanquished, A narrative begins to emerge of the war as an epic struggle between Germans and Slavs.

  • Which countries formed the Central Powers?

    Academic text (2013)

  • A better combined strategy could have brought the Central Powers to their knees that summer.

  • Perhaps most persuasive was the entry of the United States as an associated power into the struggle against the Central Powers.

    Academic text (1991)

  • This is why many Polish immigrants enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to fight with the United States against the Central Powers.

    Academic text (1991)

  • They expended all they had to defeat the Central Powers and demanded more than ever from their colonies.

  • "Believing that the secular press was partial to the Allies, the Catholic press in America tried to balance views with news favorable to the Central Powers."

    Academic text (1996)

  • Wilson also worked to transform the Entente's struggle against the Central Powers into a crusade for international liberalism, in direct opposition to Lenin's desire to transform the war into a world revolution.

    Academic text (1995)

  • By Lloyd George's own admission, the issuance of the declaration was essentially a war measure, designed to thwart the efforts of the Central Powers to win the support of world Jewry and to enlist Jewish sympathies and financial power in support of the Entente.

    Academic text (1990)

Surface Forms

Central Powers main

Morphology

central + power

The words 'central' + 'powers' transparently signal 'main' or 'important countries', so a learner can infer it refers to powerful states, but the specific historical referent (the WWI alliance of Germany, Austria‑Hungary, etc.) is a conventional proper name that is not fully predictable from the parts. Many languages have equivalent conventional labels, yet the precise geopolitical/historical meaning requires prior exposure, making the expression only partially transparent.

Etymology

Central Powers may come from old maps: the main countries were in the middle of Europe, so they were the central countries and the main powers on the map. That's why the name means the 'alliance' of Germany, Austria-Hungary and their partners who fought the Allies in World War I.