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

Born in 1954 in Masjed Soleyman in southwestern Iran and trained as a mechanical engineer, Rezaei joined al-Mansouroun, a guerrilla group fighting the Shah’s regime that became a proving ground for Iran’s future security establishment.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

Comedy duo Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol used guerrilla filmmaking and footage they shot in the mid-aughts to create a time-travel caper about their characters’ quest to play the ultimate gig.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

Meeting in Ankara with Sharaa, who has traded his guerrilla fatigues for a suit, Trump said, "He's doing an unbelievable job in unifying Syria. What a job he's doing."

From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026

Seeing the former guerrilla, now in a suit, in Ankara, Trump said, "He's doing an unbelievable job in unifying Syria. What a job he's doing."

From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026

I, too, craned to see out the portholes, examining the scenery not as a tourist but as a strategist, looking for areas where a guerrilla army might hide itself.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

Nor are streets, schools or government buildings named after him, a prohibition he imposed shortly after his guerrillas overthrew Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

Okuda also once crossed a jungle to meet leftist guerrillas in the Philippines when he ran Toyota's local operations there in the early 1970s, Bloomberg News reported.

From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026

Since the coup, some of Myanmar's myriad ethnic minority factions have banded with pro-democracy guerrillas to fight the armed forces.

From Barron's ● Jul. 18, 2026

The nation now openly mocks the bearded guerrillas, including Fidel Castro, and their generation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026

Thousands of Filipinos help the guerrillas by providing intelligence and supplies.

From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly

Related Words

• commando
• mercenary
• terrorist