Other forms: combats
Combat is fighting between armed forces. Killed in combat, combat experience, hand-to-hand combat.
As a verb, stressed on the second syllable, it means to fight against something bad, as in combat poverty. As an adjective it labels the equipment: combat boots and combat trousers both left the army for the high street.
1nouncombatFighting between armed forces.
“Her grandfather saw combat in the jungle during the war and rarely talked about it.”
combat is a fighting.
Old French combatre is com-, with, plus Latin battuere, to beat.
Latin
com- — with
Vulgar Latin
*combattere
Old French
combatre
Middle French
combat
French
combat
English, today
combat
Built from
Borrowed from French combat. 16th century, Middle French combat, deverbal from Old French combatre, from Vulgar Latin combattere, from Latin com- (“with”) + battuere (“to beat, strike”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA