guerrilla

American  

[guh-ril-uh] / gəˈrɪl ə /

Or guerilla

noun

guerrillas plural

1. a member of a band of irregular soldiers that uses guerrilla warfare, harassing the enemy by surprise raids, sabotaging communication and supply lines, etc.

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adjective

1. pertaining to such fighters or their technique of warfare: guerrilla tactics.

   guerrilla strongholds;

   guerrilla tactics.

2. of or relating to an unauthorized, edgy, or disruptive version of an activity: guerilla gardening to beautify an abandoned lot.

   guerrilla filmmaking on a busy sidewalk;

   guerilla gardening to beautify an abandoned lot.

guerrilla British  

/ ɡəˈrɪlə /

noun

1. 1. a member of an irregular usually politically motivated armed force that combats stronger regular forces, such as the army or police

   2. ( as modifier )

      guerrilla warfare

2. a form of vegetative spread in which the advance is from several individual rhizomes or stolons growing rapidly away from the centre, as in some clovers Compare phalanx

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• antiguerrilla
  noun
• guerrillaism
  noun
• counterguerrilla
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• guerrillas
  plural

Etymology

Origin of guerrilla

First recorded in 1800–10; from Spanish, diminutive of guerra “war” (of Germanic origin) + -illa diminutive suffix; originally in reference to the Spanish resistance against Napoleon; the name for the struggle erroneously taken as a personal noun; cf. war ¹, -elle

Explanation

If your brother says he’s going to become a guerrilla, he's not planning to become a hairy animal. Guerrilla fighters band together in a small underground army, usually trying to overcome a larger and more organized force. Guerrilla and gorilla are pronounced the same — which makes it easy to remember how to say guerrilla — but they have different meanings. In Spanish, guerra means "war" and guerrilla means “little army.” Guerrilla fighters tend to work in small groups and use ambush and sabotage to surprise stronger, more traditional forces. You might have heard of Che Guevara, a famous guerrilla fighter who was involved in the Cuban Revolution.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

guerrilla guerrillas

Giaconda Belli, a writer and former guerrilla who left the Sandinista party in 1990 and now lives in exile, said she knows firsthand that removing an authoritarian leader is possible.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026

Anti-putsch protests were put down by security forces, but activists quit the cities to form pro-democracy guerrilla groups, fighting alongside ethnic minority armies which have long resisted central rule.

From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026

So viewers were understandably skeptical that the corporation had lovingly funded an anti-corporate guerrilla comedy special only to immediately suppress its circulation online.

From Salon ● May 27, 2026

Its bearded guerrilla fighters inspired 1960s student movements from Paris to Mexico City.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 25, 2026

A Chinese grandmother leads an army of thirty thousand guerrilla warriors against Japanese invaders.

From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein

For generations, these documents were little more than family heirlooms that served as painful reminders of fortunes lost after the revolution led by Fidel Castro’s bearded guerrillas.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026

Petro tried unsuccessfully to negotiate peace with criminal groups, but experts say guerrillas used the talks to grow in strength.

From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026

Believing he would replicate the triumph in Cuba, he went to Bolivia with a small group of would-be guerrillas.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 25, 2026

Established by the country's parliament, the KSC investigates and prosecutes suspected war crimes committed by ethnic Albanian guerrillas during the war.

From Barron's ● Feb. 17, 2026

The propagandists with the Imperial Japanese Army develop flyers and press releases to threaten the guerrillas, hoping to quash their spirits.

From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly

Related Words

• commando
• mercenary
• terrorist