World War III

English

Alternative forms

Proper noun

World War III

  1. A hypothetical world war following World War II.
    • 1963, Bob Dylan, “Talkin' World War III Blues”, in The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan:
      One time ago a crazy dream came to me / I dreamt I was walking into World War Three
    • 1964, Harry S. Truman, 2:16 from the start, in MP2002-410 Several Cuts of Former President Truman Talking about Wars and Korea‎[1], Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162:
      And I also wanted to be sure to keep Chiang Kai-shek, who had some notion of starting a World War Number Three, from going into China and doing just that.
    • 1983, Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes, WarGames, spoken by Paul Richter:
      The WOPR [War Operations Planning Response] has already fought World War III as a game time and time again.

Usage notes

  • During the Cold War, this term implied instantaneous world destruction. With the various subsequent conventional wars, such an implication is becoming much less common. It is now more often used colloquially to exaggerate personal arguments, such as conflicts within a nuclear family.

Synonyms

Translations

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.