world war

American  

noun

• world wars
  plural

1. a war that involves most of the principal nations of the world.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• world wars
  plural

Etymology

Origin of world war

First recorded in 1910–15

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

world war

Under the veil of the Manhattan Project, this remote mesa became the site of a profound scientific pivot that ended a world war and ushered in the nuclear age.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026

For example, children born to mothers who endured famine in the Netherlands during the second world war were more likely to develop heart disease, type 2 diabetes and schizophrenia later in life.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 17, 2026

Eliot theorized in his 1925 poem “The Hollow Men,” a bleak assessment of life after the first world war.

From Barron's ● Jun. 1, 2026

There’s nothing coincidental in the fact that military schools also rose up around then, and that they kept multiplying past the first world war and up to the second one.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026

She had seen many mountains that even a world war had not destroyed.

From "A Place to Belong" by Cynthia Kadohata