GREAT WAR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Great War mean? 

• GREAT WAR (noun)
  The noun GREAT WAR has 1 sense:

1. a war between the allies (Russia, France, British Empire, Italy, United States, Japan, Rumania, Serbia, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Montenegro) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria) from 1914 to 1918

  Familiarity information: GREAT WAR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GREAT WAR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A war between the allies (Russia, France, British Empire, Italy, United States, Japan, Rumania, Serbia, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Montenegro) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria) from 1914 to 1918

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

First World War; Great War; War to End War; World War 1; World War I

Instance hypernyms:

world war (a war in which the major nations of the world are involved)

Meronyms (parts of "Great War"):

Battle of the Marne; Belleau Wood; Chateau-Thierry; Marne River (a World War I battle in northwestern France where the Allies defeated the Germans in 1918)

battle of Caporetto; Caporetto (battle of World War I (1917); Italians were defeated by the Austrian and German forces)

Dardanelles; Dardanelles campaign (the unsuccessful campaign in World War I (1915) by the English and French to open a passage for aid to Russia; defeated by the Turks)

battle of Jutland; Jutland (an indecisive naval battle in World War I (1916); fought between the British and German fleets off the northwestern coast of Denmark)

Argonne; Argonne Forest; Meuse; Meuse-Argonne; Meuse-Argonne operation; Meuse River (an American operation in World War I (1918); American troops under Pershing drove back the German armies which were saved only by the armistice on November 11)

battle of Soissons-Reims; battle of the Aisne; battle of the Chemin-des-Dames; Soissons (a battle in World War I (May 1918); the Germans tried to attack before the American numbers were too great to defeat; the tactical success of the Germans proved to be a strategic failure)

Battle of the Somme; Somme; Somme River (battle in World War I (1916))

battle of Tannenberg; Tannenberg (a battle in World War I (1914); decisive German victory over the Russians)

battle of Verdun; Verdun (a battle in World War I (1916); in some of the bloodiest fighting in World War I the German offensive was stopped)

battle of Ypres; first battle of Ypres; Ypres (battle in World War I (1914); heavy but indecisive fighting as the Allies and the Germans both tried to break through the lines of the others)

battle of Ypres; second battle of Ypres; Ypres (battle in World War I (1915); Germans wanted to try chlorine (a toxic yellow gas) as a weapon and succeeded in taking considerable territory from the Allied salient)

battle of Ypres; third battle of Ypres; Ypres (battle in World War I (1917); an Allied offensive which eventually failed because tanks bogged down in the waterlogged soil of Flanders; Germans introduced mustard gas which interfered with the Allied artillery)

 Context examples 

A correspondentship in the next great war might be within my reach.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There would be such a ferment, sir, that I do not hesitate to say that within a week of the publication of that letter this country would be involved in a great war.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A man who had read deeply about Napoleon, or who had possibly received some hereditary family injury through the great war, might conceivably form such an idée fixe and under its influence be capable of any fantastic outrage.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)