Warrior

How to spell warrior

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce warrior

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does warrior mean?

1. nounA person who fights in battle, or someone known for great courage and determination in a struggle.

Warrior in a sentence

• The museum display honoured every warrior who fell in the campaign.

• After the diagnosis she became a fierce warrior for better patient care.

Where does warrior come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from Anglo-Norman and Old French werreior or guerreieor, meaning 'a fighter' or 'one who wages war'. That noun was built on werre, the Old French word for 'war', which itself traces back to a Frankish and broader Germanic root werra meaning 'confusion', 'discord', or 'strife', the same source that gave English the plain word 'war'. English took the word in around the year 1300, when an enormous amount of military and feudal vocabulary entered the language from French after the Norman Conquest. The double r and the -ior ending both survive from that French spelling, which is exactly why the word looks heavier than the simple 'war' it grew from. Its Germanic cousins are still visible in modern German 'wirren' (to confuse) and in the Italian and Spanish word 'guerra' for war, which kept the original 'g' that French and English later softened.

How the word is built

• warr- (from war, conflict)
• -ior (agent suffix: one who does)