war (English)

Where does "war" come from?

The English verb war descends from Middle English 'werre'[1], which traces back through Late Old English 'werre'[1], Anglo-Norman and Old Northern French 'guerre'[1], and Medieval Latin 'werra'[1]. This Latin term was borrowed from Frankish '*werru', meaning 'confusion; quarrel'[1], which ultimately derives from the Proto-Indo-European root '*wers-', meaning 'to mix up, confuse, beat, thresh'[1]. This Germanic import gradually displaced various native Old English terms for armed conflict during the Middle English period[1].

Open questions

There may be a historical connection between this word family and the terms worse and wurst. [1]

Full etymology tree

war (English), 'To engage in conflict (may be followed by "with" to specify the foe).'
- inherited werre (Middle English), 'A war; a large-scale military conflict.'
  - inherited werre (Old English), 'war (large-scale military conflict)'
    - inherited guerre (Old French), 'war (large-scale conflict)'
      - inherited werra (Latin), 'war'
        borrowed *werru (Frankish)
        derived *werran (Proto-West Germanic), 'to cause confusion, disarray'
        derived *wers- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to wipe'
        suffix *-u (Frankish)

Ancestors

werre (Middle English)
werra (Latin)
*wers- (Proto-Indo-European)

Cognates and doublets

war (Dutch)
guerre (French)
verwirren (German)
guerra (Italian)
wyrsa (Old English)
werra (Old High German)
verri (Old Norse)
werran (Old Saxon)

Sources

Updated September 2026

More words starting with W

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris