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History vocabulary · Wars, Treaties and Diplomacy

Alliance

Meaning in history, with examples

/əˈlaɪəns/nounCore term

In history, alliance means: A formal agreement between states or groups to support each other, especially in war, or the group of states that make such an agreement.

In Turkish: ittifak, bağlaşma

How it is used

States form, enter into, join or break alliances. Before 1914 Europe was divided into two blocs, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. Members are allies, and in both world wars the Allies (with a capital A) were one side.

Example sentences

  1. The alliance between France and Russia worried German military planners.

  2. Marriages were often arranged to seal a political alliance.

Common collocations

  • form an alliance
  • military alliance
  • the Triple Alliance
  • a defensive alliance
  • break an alliance
  • treatyA formal written agreement between two or more states, for example to end a war, settle borders or create an alliance.
  • world warA war in which most of the world's major powers take part and fighting spreads across several continents; in practice, the wars of 1914–1918 and 1939–1945.
  • Cold WarThe long rivalry between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies, from the late 1940s until 1991, without a direct full-scale war between them.
  • dynastyA series of rulers who come from the same family and pass power from one generation to the next, or the period during which such a family rules.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Wars, Treaties and Diplomacy

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