at war with
63
3.9
- idiom
:
en guerra con
- The nation was at war with its neighboring country over territorial disputes.
- at war with countries
- at war with each other
- at war with states
It feels like they're even at war with the people that they should be protecting.
- It feels like they're even at war with the people that they should be protecting.
- And I think that I just have to be constantly at war with myself over this.
- We don't have a bunch of different authorities, all you might say, at war with each other over who's right and who's wrong.
- So if the general will says this country has to go to war with this country, we're all at war with them, whether we're on the battlefield or not.
- And and we tend to think that YouTube, Facebook, all these in a platform, they're kind of at war with each other, with Twitter.
- Or if you run out of credible enemies nearby, well, there is always someone somewhere else in the world who is at war with someone else.
- So in other words, the world is basically just adapting to a world at war, or rather Russia at war with Ukraine.
- And of course, the country was still at war with the Turkish nationalists.
- Like, like I said, like Mexico, the cartels are at war with the military.
- So we have a ruling class that is at war with its people and that's an oligarchy.
- The eight years prior to this, Iraq was at war with Iran and the US actually backed Iraq.
Examples
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We'll be at war with Germany in a week.
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I want to ask him if he feels he is at war with the United States.
Fiction book (1993) -
And they come back to a country which is really at war with itself.
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America may be at war with a nuclear power.
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England was at war, at war with its own king and at war with itself.
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France remained at war with Britain, Sweden and Russia.
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India has been at war with two of its neighbors in recent decades.
Academic text (2011) -
We are at war with terror, and fighting war means casualties.
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Twenty days later, four days after Pearl Harbor, the United States was at war with all the Axis Powers.
Fiction book (2002) -
America's at war with itself, aren't we?
Synonyms
60
4.8
Not agreeing with someone or something
Groups or countries that fight each other
Troops that are active in battle
Taking part in fighting during a battle
Antonyms
How Hostile
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'in a state of conflict' is directly and predictably built from 'war' (armed conflict) combined with the prepositions 'at' (marking a state or condition) and 'with' (indicating the opposing party). This construction parallels common patterns in many languages (e.g. equivalents of 'at peace/at war with'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
At war with comes from the image of two countries fighting a real war, with armies facing each other. So when we say someone is at war with their feelings or a company is at war with a rival, we mean they are in a strong, open 'fight'.