Hawkish

//ˈhɑːkɪʃ// adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Resembling a hawk in appearance or behaviour.
  2. 2
    Supportive of warlike foreign policy; bellicose; inclined toward military action.

    "The Prime Minister could count on the support of a hawkish majority in Parliament to support the invasion."

  3. 3
    Favouring increasing interest rates; inclined towards increasing interest rates.

    "The Federal Reserve's recent statement on the slowing of inflation was interpreted as hawkish by the market."

Adjective
  1. 1
    disposed to warfare or hard-line policies wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
aggressiveantagonisticbellicistbellicistbellicosebelligerent

Example

More examples

"In retrospect, the hawkish tendencies of that society were becoming more and more evident in the months before war broke out."

Etymology

From hawk + -ish.

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