HOSTILITIES • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Hostilities

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/hɑstˈɪlətiz/ Listen

noun

hostilities n. pl.

A legal state created by a declaration of war and ended by official declaration, during which the international rules of war apply.

Synonyms: war, state of war, hot war. "We have showed ourselves generous adversaries... and have carried on even our hostilities with humanity."

Acts of overt warfare.

Synonyms: belligerency.

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Etymology of 'Hostilities'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Hostilities" Quotes from Famous Books

... Indies and New Amsterdam but also the west coast of Africa. This new organization found much in the new world to occupy its attention but it did not neglect the Guinea coast. The Dutch realized that the African trade was indispensable to their West India colonies as a means of supplying slave labor. Hostilities, therefore, were continued against the Portuguese who still had possession of the principal part of the African trade. In 1625 the Dutch made a vigorous attempt to capture the main Portuguese stronghold at St. George d'Elmina which had been founded on the Gold Coast in 1481.[2] They ...

— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... who were jealously watching affairs in the peninsula, had entered into an alliance with this city, and taken it, with other Greek cities in that quarter of the Mediterranean, under their protection. Hannibal, although he well knew that an attack upon this place would precipitate hostilities with Rome, laid siege to it in the spring of 219 B.C. He was eager for the renewal of the old contest. The Roman Senate sent messengers to him forbidding his making war upon a city which was a friend and ally of the Roman people; but Hannibal, disregarding their remonstrances, ...

— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... The Indian hostilities which heralded King William's War began August 13, 1688. Frontenac prepared to capture Albany and even Manhattan. He did not accomplish so much; but on the night of February 8, 1689-90, his force of ninety Iroquois and over a hundred Frenchmen fell ...

— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... abating here much, although hostilities appear more remote than they did a few days ago. Three of the six Regiments mustered in from this state are now at Cairo, and probably will be reinforced with two ...

— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant

... preparing heavily for 1919 and 1920 and partially disregarding 1918 was based upon sound strategical reasoning. The war was brought to a close sooner than had been expected; hence the period of actual hostilities was devoted to laying down the foundations of a munitions industry, and the munitions actually produced, in the words of Assistant Secretary Crowell, "might almost be termed casual to the main enterprise, pilots of the quantities ...

— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

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