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

---

Civil War ² 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 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

See Examples For:

civil war Civil War

Yemen has been devastated by a civil war that began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from the capital, Sanaa.

From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2026

The Yemeni civil war has uprooted millions of people, and the latest fighting has led even more to flee their homes.

From Barron's ● Sep. 12, 2026

Yemen’s civil war began after the Houthis swept out of their northern strongholds and seized the Yemeni capital, San’a, in 2014.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

The civil war erupted in April 2023, when the RSF launched attacks across the country aimed at dislodging its rival, the Sudanese military.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026

The numbers were double that of Angola, then at the end of a long civil war, and the North Korean government became furious when they were released to the public.

From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden

The question was an urgent one to Americans amid the rising tensions leading up to the Civil War.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

On Aug. 21 the Pentagon fired the publisher, editor-in-chief and a reporter at Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper that has been reporting on American troops since the Civil War.

From Salon ● Aug. 29, 2026

When the Civil War broke out, the area revealed itself to be “a border county in a border state,” as the local historical museum puts it.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

That case wouldn’t just go down as one of the most shameful moments in the court’s history; it was also the legal system’s most significant contribution in devolving the country into the Civil War.

From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2026

I heard the turning mechanism weighs more than a ton, and it was made melted-down metal from cannons captured from the Confederacy during the Civil War.

From "The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra's Needle" by Dan Gutman