bellicose
Other forms: bellicosely
If you walk into a high school where you know no one, find the toughest looking girl in the halls and tell her she's ugly, them's fighting words. Or bellicose ones. Bellicose means eager for war.
Bellicose is from Latin bellum "war." A near synonym is belligerent, from the same Latin noun. You may wonder if they're connected to the Latin bellus "pretty, handsome," which gives us the names Bella or Isabella, as well as belle "a beautiful woman." They're not. War and beauty are not related, except in the case of Helen of Troy.
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having or showing a ready disposition to fight“bellicose young officers”aggressivehaving or showing determination and energetic pursuit of your ends
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Vocabulary lists containing bellicose
On the SAT, all of the Reading Test questions are multiple choice and are based on reading passages that may be taken from literature, science, the social sciences, or a U.S. founding document (or a text inspired by such a document). Many of the reading comprehension questions meant to assess a student’s understanding of those passages will require students to choose words that best describe the writer’s tone or point of view, words like the 25 words you see on this list. Learn them here so when you see them in an SAT answer choice, you’ll know what they mean! Following our Roadmap to the SAT? Head back to see what else you should be learning this week.
Words selected by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
On the New SAT, all of the Reading Test questions are multiple choice and are based on reading passages that may be taken from literature, science, the social sciences, or a US founding document (or a text inspired by such a document). Many of the reading comprehension questions meant to assess a student’s understanding of those passages will require students to choose words that best describe the writer’s tone or point of view, words like the 200 words you see on this list. Learn them here so when you see them in an SAT answer choice, you’ll know what they mean! Here are all of our word lists to help you prepare for the new SAT (debuting March of 2016): The Language of the Test, Multiple-Meaning Words, and Words to Capture Tone.