GUERRILLA • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Guerrilla

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Guerrilla n.

An irregular mode of carrying on war, by the constant attacks of independent bands, adopted in the north of Spain during the Peninsular war.

One who carries on, or assists in carrying on, irregular warfare; especially, a member of an independent band engaged in predatory excursions in war time. Note: The term guerrilla is the diminutive of the Spanish word guerra, war, and means petty war, that is, war carried on by detached parties; generally in the mountains.... A guerrilla party means, an irregular band of armed men, carrying on an irregular war, not being able, according to their character as a guerrilla party, to carry on what the law terms a regular war.

See images of 'Guerrilla'

Etymology of 'Guerrilla'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Guerrilla" Quotes from Famous Books

... WAR IN KANSAS Wilson Shannon Appointed Governor. The Law and Order Party Formed at Leavenworth. Sheriff Jones. The Branson Rescue. The Wakarusa War. Sharps Rifles. Governor Shannon's Treaty. Guerrilla Leaders and Civil War. The Investigating Committee of Congress. The Flight of Ex-Governor Reeder. The Border Ruffians March on Lawrence. Burning of the ...

— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... fight where they had left off. Even that fight seemed more hopeless than ever, for the Turkish army was now being speedily reorganized and rendered more effective, which meant that the pursuit of the guerrilla bands would be more deadly than it had ever been ...

— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... sucked in rain and cold; sleeping at night under the blanket that kept his saddle by day from his sore-backed horse; paid, if paid at all, with waste paper; hardened into recklessness by war—many a rebel soldier thus became a guerrilla—consoling himself, perhaps, with the thought that his desertion was not ...

— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... The ex-guerrilla was talking. "Tha's sure sayin' something, Hugh. There ain't room in New Mexico for Webb's outfit an' ...

— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... latter part of the winter of 1864-65 I was detailed as president of a military commission, called to meet in Winchester to try a man charged with being a spy, a guerrilla, a dealer in contraband goods, and a bad and dangerous man. The specifications recited that the accused had been a member of the notorious Harry Gilmor's band of partisans; that he had been caught wearing citizen's ...

— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

Words linked to "Guerrilla" : guerrilla force, Maquis, Maquisard, guerilla, guerrilla theater, insurgent