ˈwar-cry
[Cf. F. cri de guerre.]
a. A cry (whether a shout or a significant name or phrase) uttered by a body of fighters to encourage each other in charging the enemy or in rallying to the fray.
| 1748 Anson's Voy. i. iii. 30 Orellana placed his hands hollow to his mouth, and bellowed out the war-cry used by those savages. 1757 [Burke] Europ. Settlem. Amer. I. ii. iv. 187 Setting up a most tremendous shout, which they call the war cry, they pour a storm of musquet bullets upon the enemy. 1808 Jamieson, Slogan, the war-cry, or gathering word, of a clan. 1815 Elphinstone Acc. Caubul ii. v. 216 Proclaiming the Selaut (or war-cry of the Mussulmans). 1836 Thirlwall Greece III. xxiii. 290 The army followed with an appalling war-cry. |
b. fig.
| 1836 S. Houston Let. 25 Apr. in W. B. Dewees Lett. from Early Settler Texas (1852) xix. 198 Col. Sherman, with his regiment,..rung the war cry, ‘Remember the Alamo’. 1837 Dickens Let. 24 Sept. (1965) I. 312 Of course we refused it—a new agreement and copyright, being the War Cry. 1848 Sir J. Graham in C. S. Parker Life & Lett. (1907) II. 69 A further reform of the representation will be the stalking-horse of the ambitious, and the war-cry of their dupes. 1880 (title) The War-Cry and Official Gazette of the Salvation Army. 1902 L. Stephen Stud. Biog. IV. ii. 72 He was content with any general principle which would serve for a war-cry. |