wars

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of war.

   The wars of the twentieth century reshaped national borders.

   Civil wars often last longer than conflicts between separate nations.

   Note

   The plural belongs to the countable meanings: particular conflicts, trade battles, and campaigns against a social problem. War as a general condition (the horrors of war) has no plural. The plural also turns figurative easily. Someone who has been through all the wars has weathered a long run of hard experiences, not necessarily battles, and the phrase is said of a person who has come out tough.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of war.

   Whenever a rival state grows weak, the empire wars against it without hesitation.

   She wars endlessly with the bureaucracy over every small permit.

   Note

   The same spelling serves as the noun plural, so position decides. In "she wars with the bureaucracy" a subject stands before it, which makes it a verb. Usually it takes no object, and with names the opponent: wars with her rivals, wars with itself. A transitive use also exists, taking the contest itself as object in the sense of wages.

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