militant

1. 1.

   disposed to warfare or hard-line policies

   “militant nations”

   “hawkish congressman”

   “warlike policies”

   Synonymshawkishwarlike

   Similarunpeaceful
2. 2.

   showing a fighting disposition

   “highly competitive sales representative”

   “militant in fighting for better wages for workers”

   “his self-assertive and ubiquitous energy”

   Synonymscompetitive

   Similaraggressive
3. 3.

   engaged in war

   “belligerent (or warring) nations”

   Synonymsbelligerentwar-riddenwarring

   Similarunpeaceful

1. 1.

   a militant reformer

   Synonymsactivist

   Broaderreformer

   NarrowerBlack MuslimBlack PantherMalcolm X

Other forms of militant

plural

militants·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about militant

What does militant mean?

militant means "disposed to warfare or hard-line policies". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in militant?

militant has 3 syllables: mil-i-tant. The stress falls on "mil". In IPA it is /ˈmɪlətənt/.

What is another word for militant?

Close synonyms include hawkish, warlike, competitive, belligerent, war-ridden. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is militant a common word?

militant is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.