Disarmament is reducing or giving up weapons by agreement. Nuclear disarmament, disarmament talks, unilateral disarmament.
Unilateral means giving them up whether or not anybody else does, and multilateral means by agreement — and the difference between those two words is most of the argument. Verification is the hard part of any treaty, since a promise cannot be checked.
1noundisarmamentReducing or giving up weapons by agreement.
“The two superpowers signed a treaty on nuclear disarmament.”
disarmament is a policy.
From disarm plus -ment, made on the model of armament.
Anglo-Norman
desarmer
Middle English
desarmen — to divest of arms
English
disarm
English, today
disarmament
From disarm + ment, modeled after armament. by surface analysis, dis + armament. disarm comes from Middle English desarmen (“to divest of arms”), from Anglo-Norman desarmer.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA