World War II

From world war +‎ two. The term was used for a hypothetical future war as early as 1919. It was first applied to the 1939–45 war in a Time article dated 11 September 1939.^[1]

• enPR: wûrld wôr to͞o, IPA^(key): /ˌwɜː(ɹ)ld ˌwɔː(ɹ) ˈtuː/
  • (UK) [ˌwɜːɫd ˌwɔː ˈtuː]
  • (US) [ˌwɝɫd ˌwɔɚ̯ ˈtu]

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World War II

1. (history) The war from 1939 to 1945 of the Allied forces, including the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, France, and China, against the Axis Powers, including Germany, Italy, and Japan.

   Synonyms: Second World War, World War 2, WW2, WWII

   • 1939 November 10, “Following The War”, in The Chart‎^[1], volume I, number 1, Joplin, Missouri: Joplin Junior College, page 4, column 1:

     As students all over the United States knuckle down to learning, the rumble of war drums once more proclaims Mars high man in Europe. Discarding morbid curiosity, every student should consider it vitally necessary to get a general picture of the causes, movements, and possible effects of World War II. The average U. S. citizen's knowledge of World War II will probably decide his role in it.

   • 1941 March, Frederick M. Barrows, “The War in Africa”, in Command and General Staff School Military Review‎^[2], volume XXI, number 80, →OCLC, page 23, column 1:

     Nothing since the beginning of World War II, a year ago last September, has boosted British morale or given them greater courage to fight on as has this brilliant Libyan campaign.

   • 2005 May 23, Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism‎^[3], Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 182:

     If Demandt's essay served as a strident example of the German desire for normalcy, a more subtle example was provided by a brief allohistorical depiction of a Nazi victory in World War II written by German historian Michael Salewski in 1999.

   • 2023 March 25, Damien Cave, “An Anxious Asia Arms for a War It Hopes to Prevent”, in The New York Times‎^[4], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 March 2023‎^[5]:

     The tiny island of Tinian was the launch point for American planes carrying atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Now a new runway is being carved from the jungle, just south of World War II ruins inked with mildew.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:World War II.

• World War II is the most common among the synonyms.

• “World War II”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “World War II”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “World War II”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• “World War II”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “World War II” (US) / “World War II” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• World War II, Second World War, World War 2, WW2, WWII at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
• World War II on Wikipedia.Wikipedia