culture war

[kuhl-cher wawr]

noun

1. a conflict or struggle for dominance between groups within a society or between societies, arising from their differing beliefs, practices, etc..

   a culture war over the right to own a gun; China’s culture war with the Western world.

Word History and Origins

Origin of culture war¹

First recorded in 1875–80; a loan translation of German Kulturkampf ( def. ). The contemporary sense was first recorded in 1985–90 .

Example Sentences

In Huntington Beach, another Orange County city frequently at the center of national culture war debates, a September memorial for Kirk at the pier took a dark turn when a group of men joined the crowd chanting, “White men fight back.”

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He told Salon that he was disappointed that she, alongside dozens of other House democrats, voted for last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which was packed with conservative culture war priorities like denying health care to the transgender children of servicemembers.

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Miyares, a former prosecutor who served three terms as a state delegate, had campaigned on fighting culture war issues on behalf of conservatives.

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Maybe Mr. Noseda really is tone-deaf to America’s culture war.

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Appeared in the November 1, 2025, print edition as 'Where Music Drowns Out the Culture War'.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal