casus belli
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Casus Belli
Etymology
From Latin cāsus (“cause”) + bellī (“of war”). The English homographic plural casus belli is also taken from Latin, where the plural of this phrase would be cāsūs bellī, with a long vowel ū in the first word, as is typical of the nominative plural of fourth-declension nouns.
Pronunciation
Noun
casus belli (plural casus belli or casus bellis)
- An act seen as justifying or causing a war; an act of war.
- 1897, Congressional Record, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 664:
- The Executive, however, can do many acts which would constitute a casus belli, and thus indirectly result in war; but this does not imply in the Executive a concurrent power to declare war, and the war which would result would be one declared by a foreign power.
- 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York: Review Books, published 2006, page 309:
- Algiers seethed, and this was the casus belli for the ‘ultras’ to attempt a general strike.
- 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 138:
- Furthermore, if the French had airily waved away one potential casus belli, more than enough causes of potential conflict remained embedded in the Aix-la-Chapelle Treaty.
- 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 290:
- Had Saddam taken only the Rumaila oil field and the Bubiyan and Warba islands, there would have been no casus belli.
- 2022 March 1, Mary Elise Sarotte, “I’m a Cold War Historian. We’re in a Frightening New Era.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- And Washington needs to communicate clearly with not only its allies but also the American public on the risks involved if spillover from Ukraine into Article 5 territory verges on a casus belli — an event that provokes a war.
Translations
act causing war
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Etymology
Noun
casus belli m (invariable)
Etymology
Pronunciation
Noun
casus belli n (indeclinable)
- (international law, literary) casus belli, act of war (action that would justify the initiation of hostilities against the perpetrator; an action that by its nature comprises a cessation of peace)
Further reading
- casus belli in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
- casus belli in Polish dictionaries at PWN
- casus belli in PWN's encyclopedia
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from Latin cāsus bellī (literally “case of war”).
Noun
casus belli m (plural casuses bellis)
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