Virtuous English AcademyConflict & Resolution — B2 English Vocabulary
This B2 vocabulary list gathers 50 upper-intermediate English words about conflict & resolution — disputes, war and making peace. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using conflict & resolution words in English
Conflict vocabulary is unusually precise about stages, and the three words for stopping a war are not synonyms: a ceasefire, a truce and an armistice differ in formality and permanence. This page sets them out. It also covers hostility, whose plural means something quite specific, and combat, which shifts its stress between noun and verb.
What to watch out for
Ceasefire, truce, armistice
A ceasefire is an agreement to stop shooting, often local and often temporary. A truce is a broader informal suspension of fighting, which may be brief. An armistice is a formal agreement between governments to end hostilities, and it normally precedes a full peace treaty, which is the legal end of the war. The words describe a sequence, not the same thing.
Hostilities in the plural means the fighting itself
The uncountable singular hostility means unfriendliness or opposition: open hostility towards the plan. The plural hostilities is a formal term for armed conflict: hostilities ceased at midnight. The two are far enough apart that the plural cannot be used as a plural of the first. Warfare is uncountable throughout: modern warfare, never warfares.
COM-bat the noun, com-BAT the verb
The noun is stressed at the front — killed in combat — while the verb is stressed on the second syllable and means to fight against something, usually abstract: measures to combat inflation. Note also the prepositions on this topic: retaliate against, mediate between two sides, surrender to an enemy, and settle a dispute with no preposition at all.
Words learners mix up
Conflict reporting sizes events precisely, and the size is carried by the noun. These clusters cover how big the fighting is, what kind of rising against authority it is, and the vocabulary of not fighting.
How big is the fighting?
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| skirmish | A brief, small clash between small groups, usually away from the main action. | A skirmish at the border post. |
| clash | A violent confrontation, often between protesters and police as much as armies. The most flexible word here. | Clashes broke out after the verdict. |
| ambush | A surprise attack from a concealed position. Defined by the method, not the scale. Both noun and verb. | The convoy was ambushed at dawn. |
| siege | Surrounding a place to force it to surrender. Long by nature — measured in weeks or years. | The siege lasted eleven months. |
| offensive | A large planned attack across a front. A noun here, and it takes launch. | They launched a spring offensive. |
Warfare sits above all of these as the uncountable term for the activity itself — guerrilla warfare, trench warfare — so it never takes a plural. Note that offensive as an adjective means causing offence, an entirely separate word that happens to share the spelling.
Rising against authority
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| revolt | An act of refusing to obey, which may be brief and may not be armed. Also a verb. | Backbenchers revolted over the tax. |
| rebellion | Organised armed resistance to a government. Larger and more sustained than a revolt. | The rebellion spread to three provinces. |
| uprising | A popular rising by ordinary people, usually spontaneous and usually crushed. | The 1956 uprising. |
| militant | A person using confrontational or violent methods for a cause. Also an adjective. Contested — one side’s militant is another’s fighter. | Militants claimed responsibility. |
Revolt has a much wider everyday life than the others: a cabinet, a workforce or a group of shareholders can revolt with nobody harmed. Uprising is the one that implies the people rather than an organisation, and it carries sympathy for them.
The vocabulary of not fighting
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| ally | A state or person formally on your side. Both noun and verb, and the noun stresses the first syllable: AL-ly. | Their oldest ally refused to send troops. |
| neutrality | Formally taking no side. A declared legal position, not simply an absence of involvement. | Switzerland maintained its neutrality. |
| coexist | To live alongside each other without conflict. Implies difference persisting rather than being resolved. | The two communities have coexisted for centuries. |
| pact | A formal agreement between parties, often about what they will not do. | A non-aggression pact signed in 1939. |
| peacekeeping | Third-party forces maintaining a peace that already exists. Not the same as intervening to make one. | A UN peacekeeping mission. |
The distinction that matters in reporting is peacekeeping against peacemaking: keepers monitor an agreed ceasefire with the consent of both sides, while making peace where none exists is a different mandate entirely.
Collocations that sound natural
Conflict reporting is written to formula, and the formula carries the facts. These are the pairings that appear in every dispatch and in most B2 reading passages.
casualty
heavy casualtiescivilian casualtiescasualty figuresinflict casualties
Usually plural, and it covers the injured as well as the dead — which is why reports distinguish casualties from fatalities.
stalemate
reach a stalematebreak the stalematea military stalemate
From chess. It means neither side can win, which is stronger than a temporary pause.
siege
lay siege tounder siegelift the siegea siege mentality
The verb phrase is lay siege to. A siege mentality is figurative: feeling constantly under attack.
troops
deploy troopswithdraw troopsground troopstroop movements
Plural only when it means soldiers collectively. The singular troop is a specific unit, so a troop is not one soldier.
retaliate
retaliate againstretaliate forin retaliation forswift retaliation
Intransitive: you retaliate against someone for something. It never takes a direct object.
ceasefire
agree a ceasefirea ceasefire holdsviolate a ceasefirea fragile ceasefire
One word in current British usage. A ceasefire holds or collapses — the standard verbs in reporting.
Formal, neutral or informal?
Several of these words are politically contested, two have vivid figurative lives outside conflict, and one pair is a genuine false friend.
- militant vs terroristContestedNews organisations differ sharply. Militant is deliberately less loaded; terrorist asserts a judgement about the targeting of civilians, and many outlets restrict it to attribution — designated a terrorist organisation by. Choose consciously and be consistent.
- bombardLiteral + figurativeTo attack continuously with artillery — and, very commonly now, to overwhelm with something: bombarded with emails. The figurative sense is entirely standard in British English.
- strifeLiterary · formalBitter conflict within a group or country: civil strife, industrial strife. Uncountable, and it belongs to headlines and formal prose rather than speech.
- veteranTwo sensesSomeone who has served in the armed forces — the primary sense in American English and increasingly in British. Also anyone with long experience: a veteran broadcaster. Context separates them without difficulty.
- warriorHistorical · figurativeA fighter in historical or heroic contexts. Modern armed forces are described with soldier, troops or personnel; warrior in a contemporary report reads as deliberate rhetoric.
- fortifyTwo unrelated sensesTo strengthen a place against attack — and, in food and drink, to add nutrients or alcohol: fortified cereal, fortified wine. The metaphorical sense of strengthening resolve also survives.
- appeaseLoadedTo make concessions to avoid conflict. Neutral in origin, but its use for 1930s policy towards Germany has left it permanently pejorative — calling a policy appeasement is an accusation of weakness.
- turbulentFormal · broadMarked by disorder and instability: a turbulent decade. Applies to politics, markets and personal lives, not only to conflict, and its physical sense describes air and water.
Sentences to try
Four frames from conflict reporting. Each stage word means something specific.
- A ceasefire was agreed but collapsed within a week.
- Hostilities resumed along the northern border.
- The United Nations offered to mediate between the two sides.
- New measures were introduced to combat organised crime.
Questions about conflict & resolution vocabulary
What is the difference between a ceasefire, a truce and an armistice?
They mark different points on the way out of a conflict. A ceasefire is an agreement to stop firing, frequently local, short and easily broken. A truce is a somewhat broader suspension of fighting, often informal and often for a specific purpose such as evacuating civilians. An armistice is a formal agreement between the governments involved to end hostilities altogether, and it usually leads to a peace treaty, which is the legal instrument that actually ends the state of war.
What does "hostilities" mean?
In the plural, hostilities is a formal term for armed fighting between opposing forces: hostilities broke out in the spring, the cessation of hostilities. This is distinct from the uncountable singular hostility, which means unfriendliness or active opposition and needs no war at all: He met the proposal with open hostility. Because the two senses are so far apart, the plural is not simply a countable version of the singular, and the two are used in quite different contexts.
How do you pronounce "combat"?
The noun, meaning fighting, is stressed on the first syllable: COM-bat, as in wounded in combat or combat troops. The verb, meaning to take action against something, is stressed on the second: com-BAT, as in policies to combat poverty. American English often stresses the verb on the first syllable too, so both are heard. The verb usually takes an abstract object — crime, inflation, disease — rather than a physical enemy, which is a useful clue to which form you need.