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bellicose

US/ˈbɛlɪkoʊs/
adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,101 of 15,258leans written

Bellicose means eager to fight. Bellicose rhetoric, a bellicose speech, bellicose and threatening.

It belongs to states and to leaders rather than to individuals in a pub, and it is the standard word for language that threatens war. The Latin is bellum, war, which also gives belligerent and rebel.

Definitions of bellicose

  1. 1adjectivebellicoseEager to fight.C2

    “The general's bellicose speech made war seem almost certain.”

bellicose is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin bellicosus comes from bellum, war.

  1. Latin

    bellicosus

  2. Middle English

    bellicose

  3. English, today

    bellicose

From Middle English bellicose, from Latin bellicosus. From Middle English bellicose, from Latin bellicosus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

bellicose in the wild

  • Because of his bellicose nature, Albert was given the cognomen Bellator ("the Warlike") during his lifetime.

    Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach

  • A bellicose warrior-bishop, under him the diocese suffered.

    Henry I of Augsburg

  • The fascist government favored virile and bellicose monuments, recalling or inspiring the dreams of empire.

    Monument to the Bersagliere, Porta Pia

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.