war game
Americannoun
noun
-
a notional tactical exercise for training military commanders, in which no military units are actually deployed
-
a game in which model soldiers are used to create battles, esp past battles, in order to study tactics
verb
Etymology
Origin of war game
First recorded in 1820–30
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
US Army trucks were left at the Bandiana base in 2023 after an Australian war game involving US troops held every two years.
From Barron's ● Jun. 16, 2026
“This was a war game in a residential neighborhood recently devastated by catastrophic fire that took place in a weeknight, in the middle of the night.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026
“They shouldn’t be the rope in this tug of war game that’s going on,” said Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
From Salon ● Nov. 6, 2025
Chess, by and large, is a war game played by nonmartial people who would have trouble identifying the business end of an M16 or explaining the difference between an embrasure and a sally port.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 26, 2023
The Pentagon was in the earliest stages of planning for a war game that they were calling Millennium Challenge ’02.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
