martial
Pluralmartials
- 1Relating to war or fighting, or having a warlike quality.
The composer gave the anthem a martial rhythm, all snare drums and brass.
Their speeches grew increasingly martial as tensions along the border rose.
Similarwarlike, military, bellicose, belligerent, militant
Oppositepeaceful
Note
Middle English already had the word, spelled martial, marcial or mercial, and its meaning ranged more widely than it does today. It covered warlike and military, and also brave, hardy, fierce and even ruthless. Modern English keeps the warlike core and applies it to things as well as people: martial exploits, martial shows, a martial rhythm. When the reference is to the armed forces as an institution, the military-life meaning takes over.
- 2Relating to the armed forces, the profession of arms, or military life.
Martial discipline shaped every hour of the cadets' day.
The country has remained under martial law for two years.
Similarmilitary
Oppositecivilian
Note
Here the word turns from temperament to institution. It names the world of soldiers, with their discipline and their law, rather than a fighting spirit. The Petition of Right of 1628 already uses it in the language of commissions and justice. Its neutral, almost official tone lets Xavier Herbert play with it in Capricornia (1938), where a drunk asleep under the Federal Flag looks "like a martial corpse."
- 3Characteristic of or suited to a warrior; having a soldierly bearing.
His martial bearing made him stand out among the new officers.
There was something martial in the way she squared her shoulders.
Note
The sense of bearing and carriage, applied to how a person looks or moves rather than to war itself. In Shakespeare's Hamlet the ghost passes the watch "with martial stalk," and Defoe praises a general's "martial valour." Soldierlike and warriorlike are close equivalents. Martial sounds more elevated than either and pairs naturally with nouns like bearing, stride, valor and train.
- 4A warrior or fighting man.
The king rewarded each martial who survived the long siege.
Seasoned martials gathered in the hall before the campaign began.
Note
As a noun for a fighting man the word is obsolete, and readers meet it only in older texts. In Charles Rochford's translation of Eugène Sue's The Mysteries of Paris (c. 1850), "the martials" is the name a character gives a band of pirates. The adjective lives on in phrases like martial law, but for the person, write soldier or warrior.
- 5Relating to the planet Mars.
Early treatises described the martial orbit with surprising accuracy.
No naturalist can watch winter and summer come and go on the opposite hemispheres of the martial planet, without feeling that life must have come into being where all the machinery of life is in such perfect working.
1874, N[athaniel] S[outhgate] Shaler, “The Moon”Note
An older way of saying Martian, now obsolete. George Chapman's Iliad (1611?) speaks of "the martial planet," where the war god and the planet are hard to separate. Nathaniel Southgate Shaler still uses the phrase in The Atlantic Monthly in 1874, watching the seasons change on its hemispheres. In modern writing, use Martian. Martial alone now reads as "warlike."
- 6Relating to the astrological influence attributed to the planet Mars.
The chart showed a strong martial aspect governing his temperament.
She read the martial influence as a sign of coming conflict.
Note
Astrology gave Mars a temperament, and this adjective carries it: fierce, choleric and fiery. In 1682 Joseph Blagrave warns of a "martial disease," such as pestilential fevers, wounds and scalds. William Lilly, in Zadkiel's 1852 edition, gives the martial man a full face, high color and darting eyes. The usage is obsolete. In old astrological texts it means "ruled by Mars" rather than simply "warlike," though the two shade together.
- 7Containing or relating to iron, which alchemists linked symbolically to the planet Mars.
Apothecaries recommended martial preparations for patients suffering from anemia.
This dephlogisticated martial vitriol, as M. [Torbern] Bergman calls it, is often found in nature, particularly in the ores of alum.
1790, Thomas Garnett, “Experiment XI”Note
Alchemists linked iron with Mars, so martial came to mean "of iron" in chemistry and medicine. The obsolete vocabulary includes martial preparations, martial flowers (a reddish crystalline salt of iron) and martial vitriol, a name Thomas Garnett in 1790 credits to Torbern Bergman. Modern equivalents are ferric and ferrous, or chalybeate for iron-bearing waters.
- 8A celestial body considered to fall under the astrological influence of the planet Mars.
The astrologer traced each martial across the chart that night.
Ancient texts counted certain stars among the martials of the heavens.
Note
The noun partner of the astrological adjective: a star or planet counted among those Mars governs, and so expected to share its fierce influence. Like the adjective, it is obsolete and belongs to historical astrology, and its plural is martials. A modern writer describing such charts would more naturally say a body is under Mars.
- 9A being native to the planet Mars.
SimilarMartian
Note
The noun counterpart of the obsolete "of Mars" adjective, naming imagined inhabitants of the planet. The Spectator in 1892 speculates about "the Martials, if there be Martials," and sets them beside "terrestrials." The capital letter and the pairing show the word working as the name of a people. It is now obsolete, so use Martian.
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Origin
From Middle English martial, from Middle French martial, or directly from Latin mārtiālis ('of or pertaining to Mars, the Roman god of war'), built from Mārtius ('of Mars') plus the adjective-forming suffix -ālis. It is related to Italian marziale, Portuguese marcial, and Spanish marcial.