Wap"ping (?), n. Yelping. [R.] Fuller.
War (?), a. Ware; aware. [Obs.] Chaucer.
War (?), n. [OE. & AS. werre; akin to OHG. werra scandal, quarrel,
sedition, werran to confound, mix, D. warren, G. wirren, verwirren, to
embroil, confound, disturb, and perhaps to E. worse; cf. OF. werre war,
F. querre, of Teutonic origin. Cf. Guerrilla, Warrior.]
1. A contest between nations or states, carried on by force, whether
for defence, for revenging insults and redressing wrongs, for the
extension of commerce, for the acquisition of territory, for obtaining
and establishing the superiority and dominion of one over the other, or
for any other purpose; armed conflict of sovereign powers; declared and
open hostilities.
Men will ever distinguish war from mere bloodshed.
F. W. Robertson.
As war is the contest of nations or states, it always implies that such
contest is authorized by the monarch or the sovereign power of the
nation. A war begun by attacking another nation, is called an offensive
war, and such attack is aggressive. War undertaken to repel invasion,
or the attacks of an enemy, is called defensive.
2. (Law) A condition of belligerency to be maintained by physical
force. In this sense, levying war against the sovereign authority is
treason.