world war

• world-war

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “See Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2022/August#World War II”)

world war (plural world wars)

1. A war involving the major nations of the world.
   • 1894, George Griffith, The Angel of the Revolution, page 69:

     Their lips met in one long silent kiss, and a moment later he had gone to strike the first blow in the coming world-war, and to bring the beginning of sorrows on the Tyrant of the North.

   • 1921, Aldous Huxley, chapter 9, in Crome Yellow‎, London: Chatto & Windus:

     […] Armageddon, that world war with which the Second Coming is to be so closely associated.

• World War Zero
• World War I
• World War II
• World War III
• World War IV