strategy
Pluralstrategies
- 1A plan of action worked out to reach a particular goal, or the skill and activity of making such plans.
Like a road map that guides each decision toward a chosen destination.
The company adopted a new strategy to expand into overseas markets.
Each candidate brought a distinct strategy to the debate.
Usagea strategy for growth, a strategy to win. The planning itself takes no article: a matter of strategy.
Note
Science writing stretches it to behavior nobody plans. William E. Conner's "An Acoustic Arms Race" (American Scientist, 2013) describes ghost swift moths escaping bats by swarming just above plants, masked by the echoes off their leaves, which is an evolved strategy rather than a chosen one.
- 2The art and science of planning and directing the overall conduct of war, as distinct from battlefield tactics.
Like the master blueprint for a building, rather than the work of laying a single brick.
Napoleon's mastery of strategy allowed him to outmaneuver much larger forces.
The academy teaches strategy alongside logistics and field tactics.
Similargeneralship, warcraft
Note
The original sense, and the word still carries its army: Greek stratēgía was the office of a general, from stratós "army" and ágō "I lead." Strategy works at the level of the whole war, while tactics, its usual partner, governs a single engagement. Robert Barr's Lord Stranleigh Abroad (1913) plays with the metaphor when a character excuses a social ambush with "Strategy, my dear boy, strategy."
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- The military meaning is the original sense of strategy. en.wikipedia.org
- Greek stratēgía meant the office of a general; its roots are stratós, "army," and ágō, "I lead," through stratēgós, "general." en.wiktionary.org
- Strategy concerns the overall war, while tactics concerns individual engagements. gutenberg.org
- Robert Barr wrote Lord Stranleigh Abroad. gutenberg.org
- Lord Stranleigh Abroad was first published in 1913. en.wikisource.org
- Mrs. Vanderveldt says the exact quoted words to her brother Ned, explaining her unannounced arrival through a military metaphor. gutenberg.org
Practice
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Origin
Ancient Greek στρατός (stratós, "army") and ἄγω (ágō, "I lead") combined in στρατηγός (stratēgós, "the commander of an army"), and on that was built στρατηγία (stratēgía, "office of general, generalship"), the source of the English word.