warlord

nounattested in dialogue

United Kingdom//ˈwɔːlɔːd//
United States//ˈwɔɹlɔɹd//

A military commander or bandit leader wielding civilian power in an area where the government is weak.

noun

1
A military commander or bandit leader wielding civilian power in an area where the government is weak.
Afghanistan's first major battle of the post-Taliban era ended tonight when the soldiers of the warlord besieging this strategic city south of Kabul ran out of ammunition and fled the battlefront in clouds of dust, cursing the warlord to his face for his callousness in committing them to a fight they were doomed to lose.
“I’m not a warlord … I’m a liberator of the people,” he said. That’s the problem: So are they all. More than four million people have died in Congo’s wars since 1998, making it the most lethal conflict since World War II.

Etymology

From war + lord.

Forms

plural: warlords

warfare · The waging of war or armed conflict against an enemy.warhead · The part of a missile, projectile, torpedo, rocket, or other…warlock · A male magic-user; a male equivalent of a witch; a wizard.

warlord · A military commander or bandit leader wielding civilian power in an area where the government is weak.

warm · Of a somewhat high temperature, often but not always…warmed · At a higher temperature.warmer · Something that warms (something else) by providing some small…

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.