bellicose

From Middle English bellicose,^[1] from Latin bellicosus.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbɛlɪkoʊs/, /ˈbɛləkoʊs/

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bellicose (comparative more bellicose, superlative most bellicose)

1. Warlike in nature; aggressive; hostile.
   • 1996 March 15, James Pringle, “Peking sends out mixed signals”, in The Times‎^[1], number 65,528, →ISSN, →OCLC, Overseas News, page 14, column 8:

     CHINA sent both bellicose and conciliatory signals yesterday as tension continued in the Taiwan Strait over Chinese military exercises and the deployment of US naval battle groups.

   • 2012 July 12, Sam Adams, “Ice Age: Continental Drift”, in AV Club:

     The core Ice Age cast—wooly mammoth Manny (Ray Romano), sabertooth tiger Diego (Denis Leary), and sloth Sid (John Leguizamo)—are set adrift, sailing the high seas on a chunk of ice until they collide with a bellicose primate (Peter Dinklage).

   • 2025 March 13, Scott Neuman, Willem Marx, “https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5325949/greenland-elections-trump-independence”, in NPR:

     [Greenland's current Prime Minister Múte] Egede has insisted that Greenland is not for sale and he framed the polling partly as a referendum on Trump's seemingly bellicose bullying, saying the election was a "fateful choice."

2. Showing or having the impulse to be combative.

• See also Thesaurus:combative

• pacific

• trigger-happy
• warmonger

• IPA^(key): /bel.liˈko.ze/, (traditional) /bel.liˈko.se/
• Rhymes: -oze, (traditional) -ose
• Hyphenation: bel‧li‧có‧se

bellicose

1. feminine plural of bellicoso

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [bɛl.lɪˈkoː.sɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [bel.liˈkɔː.s̬e]

bellicōse

1. vocative masculine singular of bellicōsus

• "bellicose", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)