First World War
41
2.8
- noun
- /fɜrst wɜrld wɔr/
- His third child was born as the First World War was breaking out.
- the end of the First World War
- the aftermath of the First World War
- the First World War began
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Watch on YouTubeNow, in the course of the First World War, he returns to Germany.
- Now, in the course of the First World War, he returns to Germany.
- The the highest he got was to be a Colonel in the First World War.
- Tomorrow we go back to the First World War, the Great War as it was known, with a historian.
- My father was brought up in a home where his father was in the First World War.
- Well, by the time of the First World War, they had the biggest bakery in America.
- It was intended to be, you know, the belief that, that the First World War represented the death of an old wicked world.
- So nobody thought the First World War was going to be a four year kind of bloodbath.
- He even gave money during the First World War to a factory producing cannons.
Examples
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The group talked about the First World War, revolutions in Mexico and Russia, free love, and art.
Academic text (1996) -
But the First World War changed everything.
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I said that nothing much happened in the development of the law between the First World War and the Second World War.
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However, in the Western world, what I believe very much changed it was the war, the First World War and before the First World War.
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My father changed our name during the First World War.
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The First World War had been a war to end war.
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Without it, the world would be back where it was at the end of the First World War.
Academic text (1996) -
I later learned that he died sometime during the First World War, but that was all.
Fiction book (1997) -
There are 25,000 Dubliners serving in the British Army during the First World War.
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The First World War lasted from 1914 to 1918 and involved many nations in conflict.
Synonyms
72
3.0
A large war that many countries fought from 1914 to 1918
35
4.2
A war in Europe from 1914 to 1918 between the Allies and Central Powers
2
7.3
A name for World War I used by people who hoped it would stop future wars
2
3.0
A global war fought mainly in Europe from 1914 to 1918 between the Allies and Central Powers
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'first' (earliest), 'world' (global/involving many countries), and 'war' (armed conflict) combine to denote the earliest major global war, so a learner who knows the constituent words can infer the referent. This pattern is mirrored across many languages (e.g. Primera Guerra Mundial, Première Guerre mondiale), making the concept readily comprehensible to a B1 learner even if they do not know the exact dates or alternate name.
Etymology
First World War is a name that helps people remember this big war: World shows that many countries were involved across the globe, and First was added later after a second world war so people could tell the earlier war apart. That's why First World War now means the major global war fought in 1914–1918.