civil war
"civil-war" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“civil war” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A war fought between factions of the inhabitants of a single country, or a similar political entity.
Corpus desk
Index EN-civil-war · civil war · English
civil war · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | civil war |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “civil war” in English
Rare enough to double-check
civil war is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A war fought between factions of the inhabitants of a single country, or a similar political entity.".
Zero misspellings are on record for civil war in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Calque of Latin bellum cīvīle, in English from 1651 in reference to the English Civil War, with possible early use in the 15th and 16th centuries as wer cyuile or ciuill warre. Displaced native Old English inġewinn. The correct English form is civil war, spelled C-I-V-I-L- -W-A-R.
Definition
- 1A war fought between factions of the inhabitants of a single country, or a similar political entity.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how civil war appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Our Father’s Death Would fill up all the Guilt of Civil War, And cloſe the Scene of Blood.
At about the time the salarians and asari were forming the Council, the turians were embroiled in a bitter civil war. The Unification War, as it was later named, began with hostilities between the colonies furthest from the turian homeworld, Palaven.
Etymology
Calque of Latin bellum cīvīle, in English from 1651 in reference to the English Civil War, with possible early use in the 15th and 16th centuries as wer cyuile or ciuill warre. Displaced native Old English inġewinn.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.