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• alliance
  alliance

  noun

  the act of allying or state of being allied.
• Alliance
  Alliance

  noun

  a city in NE Ohio.

alliance

¹ American  

[uh-lahy-uhns] / əˈlaɪ əns /

noun

• alliances
  plural

1. the act of allying or state of being allied.

   Synonyms:

   affiliation, partnership, bloc, combination, coalition, association

2. a formal agreement or treaty between two or more nations to cooperate for specific purposes.

   Synonyms:

   compact, pact

3. a merging of efforts or interests by persons, families, states, or organizations.

   an alliance between church and state.

4. the persons or entities so allied.

5. marriage or the relationship created by marriage between the families of the spouses.

6. correspondence in basic characteristics; affinity.

   the alliance between logic and metaphysics.

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Alliance ² American  

[uh-lahy-uhns] / əˈlaɪ əns /

noun

1. a city in NE Ohio.

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alliance ¹ British  

/ əˈlaɪəns /

noun

1. the act of allying or state of being allied; union; confederation

2. a formal agreement or pact, esp a military one, between two or more countries to achieve a particular aim

3. the countries involved in such an agreement

4. a union between families through marriage

5. affinity or correspondence in qualities or characteristics

6. botany a taxonomic category consisting of a group of related families; subclass

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Alliance ² British  

/ əˈlaɪəns /

noun

1. 1. the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party acting or regarded as a political entity from 1981 to 1988

   2. ( as modifier )

      an Alliance candidate

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Usage

What is an alliance? An alliance is the act or state of being in a mutually beneficial relationship to work toward a common goal, as in The United States’ longest alliance is with France. Often, alliance refers to a formal agreement between nations that promise to assist each other in war, as in Germany, Italy, and Japan agreed on an alliance during World War II. Alliance can also be used more generally to refer to the people or groups that come together in a common cause, as in The invading orcs were defeated by an alliance of men, elves, and dwarves. Alliance is similar to words such as confederation, union, and league, which also refer to beneficial partnerships. Alliance is used more generally than these words, however. Example: The kids at my school formed an alliance to stop the bully from harassing us. 

Synonym Usage

Alliance, confederation, league, union all mean the joining of states for mutual benefit or to permit the joint exercise of functions. An alliance may apply to any connection entered into for mutual benefit. League usually suggests closer combination or a more definite object or purpose. Confederation applies to a permanent combination for the exercise in common of certain governmental functions. Union implies an alliance so close and permanent that the separate states or parties become essentially one.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• interalliance
  noun
• nonalliance
  noun
• prealliance
  noun
• realliance
  noun
• suballiance
  noun
• proalliance
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• alliances
  plural

Etymology

Origin of alliance

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English aliance, from Old French; equivalent to ally + -ance

Explanation

Countries that have an alliance, or agreement, help each other out when in need. That means during times of war, for example, if two countries have an alliance, one will help the other by providing weapons and supplies. An alliance doesn't just have to be between two countries; you can see alliances formed on a playground, when kids start clustering in groups or dividing themselves into teams to play tag. An alliance is essentially a connection through which a common interest is shared. A marriage is an alliance between two people who decide to share their lives together.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

alliance Alliance alliances

Canada offered support Thursday to boost Ukraine's air defenses and help replenish its drone stocks, as the countries pledged to deepen their alliance during a visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026

Last year, in his first visit to China in nearly seven years, Mr. Modi traveled to Tianjin for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security alliance led by China and Russia.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026

Australia is also an attractive market for foreign investment, as "we've got availability of land, we've got political stability, and we've got the Five Eyes security alliance," Dennett says.

From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026

Nirvana had made this small corporate alliance permissible a couple of years earlier, finding a loophole as Cobain wore a T-shirt that read “Corporate Magazines Still Suck” on their Rolling Stone cover.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026

As a result, the Democratic New Deal coalition evolved into an alliance of urban ethnic groups and the white South that dominated electoral politics from 1932 to the early 1960s.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

The Taxpayers' Alliance think tank said the public would be "stunned" at the cost and called for the government to urgently review the scheme.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

A report this spring by the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance suggested they made up more than 20% of Harvard undergraduates in the 1990s and about 7% now.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

Part of a generation that came of age after Hong Kong's 1997 return to Chinese rule, she attended the vigils from childhood and joined the Alliance in 2010 as a volunteer.

From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026

A two-time Oscar-winning supervising sound editor, Baker Landers is vice president of California Post Alliance, the group sponsoring the bill.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2026

Granted, Pondicherry was once a French colony, but no one would have me believe that some of the zoo animals had frequented the Alliance Francaise on rue Dumas.

From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

And are these shifts leaving America's extraordinary global network of alliances vulnerable?

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

But alliances can withstand a lot of friction—physical proximity alone probably makes a wholesale U.S.-Canada divorce impossible—and escalation isn’t guaranteed.

From Slate ● Aug. 25, 2026

For nearly three decades, Jeff Probst has welcomed a new set of strangers to a remote location, where they make alliances, betray each other and get voted off in pursuit of a $1 million prize.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026

To counter the growing threat across Fae territories, Prythian’s fractured Night Court must overcome internal rifts and recent betrayals to restore former alliances.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026

Rivalries among Europe’s Great Powers had led to an elaborate network of military alliances, in which one nation pledged to support another in the event of war.

From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman