armed combat

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

armed combat - an engagement fought between two military forces combat battle, engagement, fight, conflict - a hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war; "Grant won a decisive victory in the battle of Chickamauga"; "he lost his romantic ideas about war when he got into a real engagement" hostilities, belligerency - fighting; acts of overt warfare; "the outbreak of hostilities" trench warfare - a type of armed combat in which the opposing troops fight from trenches that face each other; "instead of the war ending quickly, it became bogged down in trench warfare" war, warfare - the waging of armed conflict against an enemy; "thousands of people were killed in the war" aggression - the act of initiating hostilities armed forces, armed services, military, military machine, war machine - the military forces of a nation; "their military is the largest in the region"; "the military machine is the same one we faced in 1991 but now it is weaker"