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War games translates German Kriegspiel (see kriegspiel). War chest is attested from 1901 now usually figurative. War crime is attested from 1906 (in Oppenheim's "International Law").

Warpath (1775) originally is in reference to North American Indians, as are war-whoop (1761), war-paint (1826), and war-dance (1757). Old English had many poetic words for "war" ( wig, guð, heaðo, hild, all common in personal names), but the usual one to translate Latin bellum was gewin "struggle, strife" (related to win (v.)).įirst record of war-time is late 14c. Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian guerra also are from Germanic Romanic peoples turned to Germanic for a "war" word possibly to avoid Latin bellum (see bellicose) because its form tended to merge with bello- "beautiful." There was no common Germanic word for "war" at the dawn of historical times. Cognates suggest the original sense was "to bring into confusion." Late Old English wyrre, werre "large-scale military conflict," from Old North French werre "war" (Old French guerre "difficulty, dispute hostility fight, combat, war " Modern French guerre), from Frankish *werra, from Proto-Germanic *werz-a- (source also of Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, German verwirren "to confuse, perplex"), from PIE *wers- (1) "to confuse, mix up".