戦争
Meaning in Englishwar, armed conflict
Animated kanji stroke order
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Word context
What it means
What does 戦争 mean? 戦争 (sensou) denotes a sustained, organized armed conflict between political entities or groups, characterized by military operations, large-scale violence, and political objectives; in everyday English it corresponds to 'war' or 'armed conflict' and covers both declared interstate wars and large civil wars.
Main meanings
- Military engagements at the national or international level as reported in news and history.
- Extended hostilities that involve mobilization of forces, not just a single battle.
- Figurative use to describe intense non-military struggles (e.g., a policy 'war' or 'war on' a social problem).
- Legal/technical sense distinguishing between states of peace and state of war in treaties and international law.
How to use it
Used across formal and informal registers: in news reporting, academic history, legal texts, political debate, and everyday speech when referring to actual wars or metaphorical 'wars' on issues; neutral in tone when reporting facts, more charged when used rhetorically or emotionally; appears in compound terms and set phrases in media and education.
Variants and close terms
- 戦い (たたかい, tatakai) — fight, battle (smaller-scale or individual combat)
- 紛争 (ふんそう, funsou) — dispute, conflict (often diplomatic or civil, less intense than full-scale war)
- 平和 (へいわ, heiwa) — peace (antonym)
- 内戦 (ないせん, naisen) — civil war (specific subtype)
Composition
- 戦 (sen) — battle, fight; conveys warfare, combat actions.
- 争 (sō) — contend, dispute, strive; indicates conflict or competition.
- Together the characters frame the idea of organized armed contention between parties, combining the notions of battle and sustained dispute.
Etymology
戦争 (sensou) uses Sino-Japanese (on'yomi) readings borrowed from classical Chinese pronunciations; the two-character compound was read in Japanese using the imported Chinese phonetics that evolved into modern sen + sō, producing the contemporary pronunciation.
Origin
The modern term gained prominence during Japan's late 19th-century modernization as the nation engaged in large-scale international conflicts (notably the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars), when a standardized vocabulary for modern, state-level warfare entered newspaper reporting, diplomacy, and legal discourse.
Word class
noun (名詞)