Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To oppose in battle; fight against.
- intransitive verb To act or work in order to eliminate, curtail, or stop: synonym: oppose.
- intransitive verb To engage in fighting; contend or struggle.
- noun Fighting, especially with weapons.
- noun Contention or strife.
- adjective Of or relating to combat.
- adjective Intended for use or deployment in combat.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A fight, especially, in earlier use, between two; in general, a struggle to resist, overthrow, or conquer: contest; engagement; battle.
- To fight; struggle or contend; battle; especially, in earlier use, engage in single fight.
- To fight or do battle with; oppose by force; contend against; resist contentiously: as, to
combat an antagonist; to combat arguments or opinions.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To struggle or contend, as with an opposing force; to fight.
- transitive verb To fight with; to oppose by force, argument, etc.; to contend against; to resist.
- noun A fight; a contest of violence; a struggle for supremacy.
- noun (Mil.) An engagement of no great magnitude; or one in which the parties engaged are not armies.
- noun one in which a single combatant meets a single opponent, as in the case of David and Goliath; also, a duel.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
battle , afight (often one in which weapons are used); astruggle forvictory . - verb transitive To
fight ; tostruggle forvictory .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb battle or contend against in or as if in a battle
- noun the act of fighting; any contest or struggle
- noun an engagement fought between two military forces
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The judicial combat is introduced by a writer of the fourteenth century, in a scene where Pilate challenges Jesus Christ to _single combat_.
Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) Isaac Disraeli 1807
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Casualty rate comparison (non combat +combat) between Bush and Clinton on 04 / 08 / 2009, -3 / +88Does the gallery launch for anyone else?
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Because of privacy laws, confirming that a soldier was wounded in combat is difficult.
Heroes or Villains? 2010
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Of course, when you need some deceitful con artists to assure gays that making gays eligible for the draft and for being badly crippled/killed in combat is somehow doing the gays a FAVOR — well, you need Democrats for that kind of bullshit.
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US soldiers killed in combat is a category of data kept and made available by the Department of Defense, so this definition should be unambiguous.
Robert Naiman: For a DREAMy, Wartime, National-Service Draft Robert Naiman 2010
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Kilo, The proportion of private contractors that engage in combat is roughly equal to that of the military.
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The most useful tactical PSYOPs used in combat is simply to tell enemy troops where and how to surrender.
Heroes or Villains? 2010
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The proportion of private contractors that engage in combat is roughly equal to that of the military.
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US soldiers killed in combat is a category of data kept and made available by the Department of Defense, so this definition should be unambiguous.
Robert Naiman: For a DREAMy, Wartime, National-Service Draft Robert Naiman 2010
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Fred Reed says that placing women in combat is “stupid and unworkable” — then provides some data to back his harsh claims:
bilby commented on the word combat
Try replacing this word with wombat for a kinder, gentler world.
January 19, 2020