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War party   /wɔr pˈɑrti/   Listen
War party

noun
1.
A band of warriors who raid or fight an enemy (used especially of Native Americans).
2.
A political party that supports a war.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"War party" Quotes from Famous Books



... flotilla glided on past the Arkansas bluffs, on the 3d of March, its people were startled by hearing the yells of a large body of savages and the loud sound of a drum, coming from behind the bluff. The natives had taken the alarm, supposing that a war party of their enemies was coming ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... He said that a war party which started weeks ago for the Illinois country had been recalled. A messenger was sent out but a few ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... and both of these are bad omens. Any person or party starting off on a journey, or on a hunting or fishing expedition, and meeting either of these creatures would probably at once turn back; and I was told that even a full war party starting off on a punitive expedition would turn back, or at least halt for a time, if it met one or other of them. I cannot help thinking there must be some other omens, which ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... All gone," was the positive declaration of the venerable head of the bailiwick, when compelled at last to answer. But Schreiber had studied the pony herd and knew better. Moreover, not more than six of their ponies had been led along with the war party that set forth in the early hours of the moonlit morning. Others, both men and mounts, unavoidably left behind, would surely be sent forward at the first possible opportunity, and, much as Webb might wish to turn back to capture the party, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... right in your way," Dominey intervened, very much in the manner of a well-bred host making his usual effort to smooth over two widely divergent points of view. "There is no doubt a war party in Germany and a peace party, statesmen who place economic progress first, and others who are tainted with a purely military lust for conquest. In this country it is very hard for us to strike a ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... have had great respect for Boone. Even with them he had acquired the reputation of being a just and humane man, while his extraordinary abilities, both as a hunter and a warrior, had won their admiration. Boone was not heading a war party to assail them. He had not robbed them of any of their horses. They were therefore not exasperated against him personally. It is also not improbable that the Frenchmen who were with them had influenced them not to ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... Such a holy ark consisted of a square wooden box, which contained "certain consecrated vessels made by beloved superannuated women, and of such various antiquated forms, as would have puzzled Adam to have given significant names to each." The leader of a war party and his attendant bore the ark by turns, but they never set it on the ground nor would they themselves sit on the bare earth while they were carrying it against the enemy. Where stones were plentiful they ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... they would have spared me even after that, but I curried favour with the chief and married one of his daughters. Now I'm a great man among them. I didn't hear of your having been brought here till half an hour ago, havin' bin away with a war party in canoes. I returned just too late to save ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... to interfere on behalf of the Spanish monarchy. The death of old Minister Hardenberg in Berlin did not loosen Metternich's hold on Prussia. Emperor Alexander hoped to conciliate his army, burning to fall upon the Turk, by treating them to a light campaign in Spain. In France, the Spanish war party ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... full blood-red suit and carry a sack of the same color. Such a man is known as magani and his clothing marks him as a person of distinction and power in his village. He is one of the leaders in a war party; he is chosen by the datu to inflict the death penalty when it has been decreed; and he is one of the assistants in the yearly sacrifice. It is not necessary that those he kills, in order to gain the right to wear a red suit, be warriors. On the contrary he may kill women and children ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... the center of the Current between two of the Isds. & round the heads of the other 2 the Current Setting imediately against the points which was choked up with Drift for a mile- Above those Isd. on the St. Side we camped altogether our Hunter or Spis discovered the sign of a war party of abt. 10 Men ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... the war party had reached the coast, there had been no sign of any retaliation, and as several days passed, Dalgard had begun to believe that they had little to fear. Perhaps the blow they had struck at the heart of the citadel had been more drastic than they had hoped. He had listened since that ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... revolutionary movement was strong in Italy. The Socialist Party remained consistently an anti-war party, with a radical and vigorous propaganda. The Armistice found the Socialist and Labor Movements strong in the North, with a growing movement in the South for the organization of ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... the man at the ford of the Gase-gase, looks but ill; I should have said that Faamuina, as he approached the first ford, was spoken to by a girl, and immediately said goodbye and plunged into the bush; the girl had told him there was a war party out from Mulinuu; and a little further on, as we stopped to sketch a flag of truce, the beating of drums and the sound of a bugle from that direction startled us. But we saw nothing, and I believe Mulinuu is (at least at present) ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... also a diplomat, and answered that we were going a half sleep to the west, to meet a big war party coming down the Platte, the white ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... as the corn dance, the thanksgiving of the Eastern tribes; the sun dance of the plains Indians; and the fish dance by the Indians of the Columbia River country at the opening of the salmon-fishing season. The departure of a war party, the return of such a party, the end of a successful hunt, were always occasions ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... happened. The Mohawks, a kingly tribe of red men, who claimed all Northeast America from the St. Lawrence to the Delaware, and who had already driven the Algonquins before them like chaff, sent down a war party from northern New York, and demanded tribute from them. There were more Algonquins than there were Mohawks; but one eagle counts for more than many kites. The kites came fluttering to Fort Orange for protection: ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... informed me that evening that Indians had been reported on the Dismal River. At breakfast the next morning he said that a large war party had been committing devastations up and down the flat. His scouts had discovered their trail going north and had informed him that they would probably make camp on the Dismal. There they were sure to be ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

... They kept a big supply of water and dried meat up there, and never went down except to hunt. They were a peaceful tribe that made cloth and pottery, and they went up there to get out of the wars. You see, they could pick off any war party that tried to get up their little steps. The Indians say they were a handsome people, and they had some sort of a queer religion. Uncle Bill thinks they were Cliff-Dwellers who had got into trouble and left home. They ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... submit the following remarks for your consideration. If the U-boat campaign is opened now without any further ado, the President will regard this as a smack in the face, and war with the United States will be inevitable. The war party here will gain the upper hand, and the end of the war will be quite out of sight, as, whatever people may say to the contrary, the resources of the United States are enormous. On the other hand, if we acquiesce in Wilson's proposal, but the scheme nevertheless comes to grief ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... writing on 26th March 1811, says "Everything seems to indicate that the Emperor Napoleon is at present still far from desiring a war with Russia. But it is not less true that the Emperor Alexander has given himself over, 'nolens volens', to the war party, and that he will bring about war, because the time is approaching when he will no longer be able to resist the reaction of the party in the internal affairs of his Empire, or the temper of his army. The ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... member of the family of Tou Ku. She was interested in bringing to a successful conclusion the enterprise which had been started by members of her family and its followers. In addition, it can be shown that a number of other members of the "war party" had direct interests in the west, mainly in form of landed estates. Accordingly, a campaign was started in 89 under her brother against the northern Hsiung-nu, and it decided the fate of Turkestan in China's favour. Turkestan remained firmly in Chinese possession until the death of Pan ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... than forty years, Russia would become, by this husbanding of her resources, the most powerful nation on the eastern continent, and able to carry out any just policy which she might desire. I might have added that one advantage of such a reduction would certainly be less inclination by the war party at St. Petersburg to plunge into military adventures. (Had Russia thus reduced her army she would never have sunk into the condition in which she finds herself now (1905), as I revise these lines. Instead of sending ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... would the dawn come, when should we be gone? I could have cried out in that agony of waiting, with the leagues on leagues to be traveled, and the time so short! If we never reached those sleepers—I saw the dark warriors gathering, tribe on tribe, war party on war party, thick crowding shadows of death, slipping though the silent forest... and the clearings we had made and the houses we had built... the goodly Englishmen, Kent and Thorpe and Yeardley, Maddison, Wynne, Hamor, the men who had striven to win and hold this land so fatal and ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... to send out Thomas, the trader, to warn the settlers of their peril, for a small war party of braves was even then concluding the preliminary war ceremonies. The reason for this Indian alarm and projected excursion was the fact that the settlers had built one fort at least on the Indian lands. Stuart finally ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... wish to smoke. [The pipe used is that furnished by the promoter or originator of the war party, termed a "partisan." The Mid[-e] is in full accord with the work undertaken and desires to join, signifying his wish by desiring ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... been wanting for some time," said I, "for yonder is a war party of Indians and no mistake; and they'll ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... self-confidence. But at the first sight of the encircling armies, the Christians knew that the time for flight was at hand. But how to flee was the question, with the compassing lines drawn close about the city. Moreover, the Zealots, the furious war party in power, would be little likely to allow any number to pass out ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... buffalo, we were unaware of their true character till next morning, when we became satisfied that what we had seen were Indians, for immediately after crossing Beaver Creek we struck a trail, leading to the northeast, of a war party that evidently came up from the head-waters ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... happened in one nation that the war party which was in control of the foreign office, the high command, and most of the press, had claims on the territory of several of its neighbors. These claims were called the Greater Ruritania by the cultivated classes who regarded Kipling, Treitschke, and Maurice ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... defend ourselves and thus encourages further transgressions, our peaceable policy will have been a great mistake. After an opportunity to observe at close hand the methods and motives of the German war party, I am frankly afraid that the latter situation will prove to be the outcome. We shall be indeed fortunate if we can keep out of the war that has ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... their record—that they have never been at war with the whites. They will steal a white man's horses fast enough, but they have never tried to take a white scalp. Their party consisted chiefly of men and a few surplus horses. But for the lodges and a few women, it might have passed for a war party. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... "A war party has gone down the pass ahead of us. There were about twenty men in it, and it's not more than two hours beyond us. Whether it's there to cut us off, or has moved by mere chance, I don't know, but the effect is just the same. If we keep on we'll run ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... their movement at the same period into the Mohawk Valley. Doubtless their grandchildren among the Iroquois, like their grandchildren among the Algonquins, remembered perfectly well the fact of their Huron and Algonquin wrongs, and led many a war party back to scenes known to them through tradition, and which it was their ambition to recover. It seems then to be the fact that the Mohawks proper, or some of their villages, while perhaps not exactly Hochelagans, were part of the kindred peoples recently ...
— Hochelagans and Mohawks • W. D. Lighthall

... "On the Inconvenience of Abolishing Christianity," &c.; but politics more and more engaged his attention; and neglected by the Whigs and hating their war policy, he turned Tory, attacked with deadly effect, during his editorship of the Examiner (1710-11), the war party and its leader Marlborough; crushed Steele's defence in his "Public Spirit of the Whigs," and after the publication of "The Conduct of the Allies" stood easily the foremost political writer of his time; disappointed ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... and his second found the rest of the war party at the further end of the vacant ground, near the haunted house. Pudd'nhead Wilson advanced to meet them, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... were other mountains, but with no snow on their tops. To the lake the explorer gave his own name, and we still call it in his honor, Lake Champlain. While there, he drove away with his firearms a body of Iroquois Indians. A few years later he went with another war party to western New York and ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... landed before daylight, and proceeded to the place in company with Paida, taking with us a large board on which to carry off the bower as a specimen. I had great difficulty in inducing my friend to accompany me, as he was afraid of a war party of Gomokudins, which tribe had lately given notice that they were coming to fight the Evans Bay people. However I promised to protect him, and loaded one barrel with ball, which gave him increased confidence, still he insisted upon carrying a large ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... or Cherokee Hall, or any valyooed citizen, thar would have issooed forth a war party, an' Red Dog would have been sacked an' burned but what the missin' gent would have been turned out. But it's different about Locoed Charlie. He hadn't that hold on the pop'lar heart; didn't fill sech a place in the gen'ral eye; an' so, barrin' a word ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... pursued by a pack of wolves instead of a war party," said Mr. Pennypacker. "At least we are numerous enough to beat off a lot of ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... and the opposition to its vigorous prosecution came not from the South. We entered it for the common cause, and for the common cause we freely met its sacrifices. If, sir, we have not been the "war party in peace," neither have we been the "peace party in war," and I will leave the past to ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... made profound salutations, promised that the war party would do her honor, and hastened away to ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... far as Carlton House Terrace. Someone in the War party at the Court of Berlin got wind of the fateful letter and sent word to someone in the German embassy in London—the Prussian jingoes were well represented there by Kuehlmann and others of his ilk—to ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... length, so as to produce harmony by the regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity."—L. Murray et al. cor. "Amelia's friend Charlotte, to whom no one imputed blame, was too prompt in her own vindication."—L. Murray cor. "Mr. Pitt's joining of the war party in 1793, the most striking and the most fatal instance of this offence, is the one which at once presents itself."—Brougham cor. "To the framing of such a sound constitution of mind."—Lady cor. "'I beseech you,' said St. Paul to his Ephesian ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... River Colony in order to reinforce the troops who were opposed to De Wet. Colenbrander alone, with his hardy colonial forces, swept through the Magaliesburg, and had the double satisfaction of capturing a number of the enemy and of heading off and sending back a war party of Linchwe's Kaffirs who, incensed by a cattle raid of Kemp's, were moving down in a direction which would have brought them dangerously near to the Dutch women and children. This instance and several similar ones in the campaign ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the corpse was discovered the scalp had been taken; and this, rather than the killing, demanded speedy revenge. A number of able-bodied men of the clan to which the grandmother belonged gathered in order to fast and make the usual sacrifices preliminary to the formation of a war party. On the last night of their fast a delegate from the hishtanyi chayani appeared in their midst, and performed the customary incantations. He painted their bodies with the black lustrous powder of iron and manganese ore which is believed to strike terror into the hearts of enemies. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... which the government was supported by the nation. The overweening confidence in themselves, which was so great as to permit them to believe that without any organization or discipline they were more than a match for the Turkish army, has always been their fatal weakness. One of the leaders of the war party said to me a little later, "The Greeks are so clever that they do not need to be trained; they can fight without it well enough to beat the Turks." We saw at Corfu how ill-prepared they were, for ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... of the others, and he did not check his animal in the least. On the contrary, he urged him to his utmost, and the four sped straight ahead on a dead run, seemingly as if they meant to charge the entire war party. ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... debate broke out, the war party maintaining that the manifestations were genuine, the peace party that they were a fraud. In the end, as neither side would give way and as Zikali, when appealed to, sat silent as a stone, refusing any explanation, the ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... his eyes followed the ledge until they rested upon him, crouching behind one of the bowlders with his rifle leveled at the war party. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... remarks against his opponents, and brought it in much earlier, thereby linking it with what it most concerned, emphasizing it, and disposing of it entirely so far as his speech was concerned. He had just enumerated the wealth of the colonies as represented by their commerce. He knew that the war party would argue, "If America is so wealthy, it is worth fighting for." That was the place, then, to refute them. To introduce his material he had to make clear the transition from the colonial wealth to his ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... were not infrequent near Vailima. The woods were often full of scouting parties and the roll of drums could be heard. One day as Stevenson and Mrs. Strong were writing together they were interrupted by a war party crossing the lawn. Mrs. Strong asked: "Louis, have we a pistol or gun in the house that will shoot?" and he answered cheerfully without stopping his work: "No, but we have friends ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... when they go to live with their husbands? It is not so with the Cayuse women. They are glad; they care for the one they belong to. They love to sit in the sun at the door of the wigwam and say to the other women, 'My man is brave; he leads the war party; he has many scalps at his belt. Who is brave like ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... peace followed, but the war party in Carthage prevailed. Hannibal was recalled. He returned to fight his last battle with Rome, October 19, 202, at ZAMA, a short distance west of Carthage. The issue was decided by the valor of the Roman legions, who loved their commander and trusted his skill. ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... Biglow Papers began to appear in the Boston Courier, and were collected and published in book form in 1848. These were a series of rhymed satires upon the government and the war party, written in the Yankee dialect, and supposed to be the work of Hosea Biglow, a home-spun genius in a down-east country town, whose letters to the editor were indorsed and accompanied by the comments of the Rev. Homer Wilbur, A.M., pastor of the First Church in Jaalam, and ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... than any of the other kings, and also was the best general of them all. Of the older and more sensible citizens some endeavoured to oppose this fatal decision, but were overwhelmed by the clamour of the war party, while the rest, observing this, ceased to attend the public assembly. There was one citizen of good repute, named Meton, who, on the day when the final decision was to be made, when the people were all assembled, took a withered garland and a torch, like ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... Crossing. Men to run the trains were hard to get, and Tom Porter, trainmaster, was putting in every man he could pick up without reference to age or color. Porter (he died at Julesburg afterward) was a great "jollier," and he wasn't afraid of anybody on earth. One day a war party of Sioux clattered into town and tore around like a storm. They threatened to scalp everything, even to the local tickets. They dashed in on Tom Porter, sitting in the despatcher's office upstairs, while the despatcher was hiding below, under a loose plank ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... charge of the village and the peace of the community, during the uproar and terrors of the debauch, found reason, upon more mature inspection, to consider them a band from some neighbouring village, perhaps an out-going war party, which, unluckily for himself, had tarried at the village to share the hospitalities, and take part in the revels, of its inhabitants. Thus, there was near the fire a huge heap of dried corn-husks and prairie-grass, designed ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... allies of the River St. John, the great war party sped westward over the waters of the Bay of Fundy and along the coast till they reached the land of the Armouchiquois. Here they met and defeated their enemies after a hard-fought battle in which Bessabez and many of his captains were slain, and the allies returned ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... contrary, those who read the signs aright, saw and predicted its approaching decline. But, as far as its power of resistance went, it was at its highest when compared with the momentarily lessened aggressiveness of the North. For the anti-war party was doing its best to tie the hands of the administration; and, while this in no wise lessened the flow of men and material to the front, it produced a grave effect upon the moral strength which our chiefs were able to infuse into their method of ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... and the delight of successive generations. Their realism, humorous invention, ready wit, unsparing irony, and keen ridicule have exercised as potent an attraction as their gloomy misanthropy has repelled. Among minor satires are his scathing attacks in prose and verse on the war party as a ring of Whig stock-jobbers, such as Advice to the October Club, Public Spirit of the Whigs, &c., the Virtues of Sid Hamet, The Magician's Wand (directed against Godolphin); his Polite Conversations and Directions to Servants are ...
— English Satires • Various

... the war party was christened the Jingo party, the men who belonged to it were called Jingoes, and the platform of the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 31, June 10, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various



Words linked to "War party" :   company, Native American, political party, Amerindian, party



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