Jump To:

• civil war
  civil war

  noun

  a war between political factions or regions within the same country.
• Civil War
  Civil War

  noun

  English history the conflict between Charles I and the Parliamentarians resulting from disputes over their respective prerogatives. Parliament gained decisive victories at Marston Moor in 1644 and Naseby in 1645, and Charles was executed in 1649

civil war

American  

[siv-uhl wawr] / ˈsɪv əl ˈwɔr /

noun

civil wars plural

1. a war between political factions or regions within the same country.

---

Civil War ¹ British  

noun

1. English history the conflict between Charles I and the Parliamentarians resulting from disputes over their respective prerogatives. Parliament gained decisive victories at Marston Moor in 1644 and Naseby in 1645, and Charles was executed in 1649

2. history the war fought from 1861 to 1865 between the North and the South, sparked off by Lincoln's election as president but with deep-rooted political and economic causes, exacerbated by the slavery issue. The advantages of the North in terms of population, finance, and communications brought about the South's eventual surrender at Appomattox

---

civil war ² British  

noun

1. war between parties, factions, or inhabitants of different regions within the same nation

---

Civil War Cultural  

1. The war fought in the United States between northern (Union) and southern (Confederate) states from 1861 to 1865, in which the Confederacy sought to establish itself as a separate nation. The Civil War is also known as the War for Southern Independence and as the War between the States. The war grew out of deep-seated differences between the social structure and economy of North and South, most notably over slavery; generations of political maneuvers had been unable to overcome these differences (see Missouri Compromise and Compromise of 1850). The secession of the southern states began in late 1860, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president. The Confederacy was formed in early 1861. The fighting began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. Most of the battles took place in the South, but one extremely crucial episode, the Battle of Gettysburg, was fought in the North. The war ended with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. (See Battle of Bull Run, Battle of Chancellorsville, Emancipation Proclamation, and Sherman's march to the sea.)

---

Discover More

The Civil War has been the most serious test yet of the ability of the United States to remain one nation.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• civil wars
  plural

Etymology

Origin of civil war

First recorded in 1540–50

Example Sentences

In France she met and married another exile, Bronislav Sossinsky, who had won the highest medal for gallantry in the White Army that fought against the Bolsheviks in Russia's Civil war.

From Reuters • Jul. 26, 2023

It marks the day in 1865 enslaved people in Galveston, Texas found out they had been freed — after the end of the Civil war, and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

From Seattle Times • Jun. 16, 2023

Civil war commenced the next year, pitting Franco’s Nationalist forces against the elected moderate-liberal coalition government known as the Second Republic.

From Washington Post • Feb. 10, 2023

Civil war produced a polarized revolutionary-counterrevolutionary conflict in which leadership passed completely into the hands of the insurgent Nationalist military who created the Francisco Franco regime in 1939.

From Slate • Feb. 7, 2017

Civil war is supposed to be the bitterest of wars, and surely family politics are the most vehement and venomous.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck