Aggression

//əˈɡɹɛʃən// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of initiating hostilities or invasion. countable, uncountable

    "Control, dispossession, violence, and tyranny are not “defensive”: they are part of an organized, ongoing aggression."

  2. 2
    violent action that is hostile and usually unprovoked wordnet
  3. 3
    The practice or habit of launching attacks. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    deliberately unfriendly behavior wordnet
  5. 5
    Hostile or destructive behavior or actions. countable, uncountable

    "The decision to impose a steel and aluminum tariff is an act of aggression which makes trade war between the two pillars of the West a grim possibility."

Show 4 more definitions
  1. 6
    the act of initiating hostilities wordnet
  2. 7
    The initiation or threat of conflict; coercion. countable, uncountable
  3. 8
    a disposition to behave aggressively wordnet
  4. 9
    a feeling of hostility that arouses thoughts of attack wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
adventuresomenessadventurousnessaggravated assaultaggressivenessaggressivenessambitiousness

Example

More examples

"We have to defend our country from the foreign aggression."

Etymology

From Middle French aggression, from Latin aggressio, from aggressus, past participle of aggredior (“to approach, address, attack”).

Related phrases

cute aggressionnon-aggression axiomnon-aggression principlepassive-aggressionwar of aggression

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.