combat
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Etymology
16th century, borrowed from Middle French combat, deverbal from Old French combatre, from Vulgar Latin *combattere, from Latin com- (“with”) + battuere (“to beat, strike”).
Pronunciation
Noun
combat (countable and uncountable, plural combats)
- A battle, a fight (often one in which weapons are used).
- 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
- "My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects; […]."
- 1950 September 1, Harry S. Truman, 0:56 from the start, in MP72-73 Korea and World Peace: President Truman Reports to the People, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162:
- In less than eight weeks, five divisions of United States troops have moved into combat, some of them from bases more than 6,000 miles away. More men are on the way. Fighting in difficult country under every kind of hardship, American troops have held back overwhelming numbers of the communist invaders.
- 2012 March, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 87:
- Conditions were horrendous aboard most British naval vessels at the time. Scurvy and other diseases ran rampant, killing more seamen each year than all other causes combined, including combat.
- a struggle for victory
Derived terms
- anticombat
- armored combat
- armoured combat
- close combat
- combatable
- combat air patrol
- combatant
- combat armor suit
- combat armour suit
- combatative
- combat boot
- combat box
- combat drone
- combat engineer
- combat fatigue
- combat fatigues
- combative
- combat loading
- combat log
- combat pants
- combat pay
- combat sport
- combat stress reaction
- combat trousers
- combatworthy
- combat zone
- intercombat
- mortal combat
- mutual combat
- noncombat
- postcombat
- post-combat
- precombat
- pre-combat
- single combat
- stage combat
Related terms
Translations
a battle; a fight
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Verb
combat (third-person singular simple present combats, present participle combatting or combating, simple past and past participle combatted or combated)
- (transitive) To fight; to struggle against.
- It has proven very difficult to combat drug addiction.
- (intransitive) To fight (with); to struggle for victory (against).
- 1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes:
- To combat with a blind man I disdain.
Translations
to fight; to struggle for victory
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References
- Jespersen, Otto (1909) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9), volumes I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 3.442, page 85.
Anagrams
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