What's the difference between battle and skirmish?

Battle


Definition:

  • (a.) Fertile. See Battel, a.
  • (v. t.) A general action, fight, or encounter, in which all the divisions of an army are or may be engaged; an engagement; a combat.
  • (v. t.) A struggle; a contest; as, the battle of life.
  • (v. t.) A division of an army; a battalion.
  • (v. t.) The main body, as distinct from the van and rear; battalia.
  • (n.) To join in battle; to contend in fight; as, to battle over theories.
  • (v. t.) To assail in battle; to fight.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Are you ready to vote?” is the battle cry, and even the most superficial of glances at the statistics tells why.
  • (2) It happens to anyone and everyone and this has been an 11-year battle.” Emergency services were called to the oval about 6.30pm to treat Luke for head injuries, but were unable to revive him.
  • (3) Alternatively, try the Hawaii Fish O nights, every Friday from 26 July until the end of August, featuring a one-hour paddleboard lesson, followed by a fish-and-chip supper looking out over the waves you've just battled (£16.75).
  • (4) The grand patriarch, battling dissent and delusion, coming in for another shot, a new king on the throne, an impossible future to face down.
  • (5) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
  • (6) Silvio Berlusconi's government is battling to stay in the eurozone against mounting odds – not least the country's mountain of state debt, which is the largest in the single currency area.
  • (7) His greatest legacy, besides his three children, is the joy and happiness he offered to others, particularly to those fighting personal battles.
  • (8) The cost-cutting shakeup is being overseen by NHS England, but is already sparking a series of local political battles over the future of services, and exposes the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to fresh criticism after his controversial role in the junior doctors dispute.
  • (9) Thatcher made changes to the UK's tax system, some changes to welfare, and many to the nature of British jobs, both through privatisation and economic liberalisation – not least in her battle with the unions.
  • (10) Customers won a significant victory in the battle with the banks earlier this month when a mass hearing was averted at Hull county court.
  • (11) Pauline Cafferkey, the Scottish nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone in 2014, has described the pain of battling the virus inside a hospital isolation unit.
  • (12) Campbell's assessment came the day after a United Nations report found that ground battles between Afghan forces and the Taliban insurgents had overtaken insurgent bombs as a leading cause of civilian deaths and injuries .
  • (13) After weeks of battling both in the press and in Albany’s back rooms, $300m was allotted in the state budget to fund pre-K in New York City.
  • (14) This is not some sophisticated, Westminstery battle, but a life-and-death, misery-or-decency choice about the very basics of life for hundreds of thousands of older British people.
  • (15) Donald Trump and the 'war on women': GOP confident mogul will lose the battle Read more Governor Scott Walker, who recently signed a restrictive 20-week abortion ban in Wisconsin , also opposes abortion without exceptions and has said voters agree, though polls tell a different story.
  • (16) Ernst had adopted conservative positions during the primary battle: she called the president a dictator and said the Environmental Protection Agency should be abolished.
  • (17) It's almost starting to feel like we're back in the good old days of July 2005, when Paris lost out to London in the battle to stage the 2012 Olympic Games, a defeat immediately interpreted by France as a bitter blow to Gallic ideals of fair play and non-commercialism and yet another undeserved triumph for the underhand, free-market manoeuvrings of perfidious Albion.
  • (18) Russia has stepped up its battle against parmesan cheese, Danish bacon and other European delicacies, announcing it plans to incinerate contraband shipments on the border as soon as they are discovered.
  • (19) "My wonderful, brave and adored father, Jack Ashley, Lord Ashley of Stoke, has died after a short battle with pneumonia."
  • (20) Quiet crisis: why battle to prop up Italy's banks is vital to EU stability Read more The country’s third-largest lender has already been bailed out twice in modern Italian history but is likely to need a third multibillion-euro intervention by the Italian government – a move that would need Brussels to break new rules designed to prevent such taxpayer bailouts after the 2008 global financial crisis.

Skirmish


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To fight slightly or in small parties; to engage in a skirmish or skirmishes; to act as skirmishers.
  • (v. i.) A slight fight in war; a light or desultory combat between detachments from armies, or between detached and small bodies of troops.
  • (v. i.) A slight contest.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This we can see writ large in the prime minister’s skirmishes with Philip Hammond , the only member of government visibly considering the national interest.
  • (2) Manouras added: We will only know once the coroner has conducted an autopsy, but what I can say is that there were no police or skirmishes at the spot at which he died.
  • (3) But decades of struggle and skirmishes with neighbours have resulted in a tightly guarded border, and they were soon captured by men in uniform.
  • (4) On Wembley Way the party atmosphere had been briefly punctuated by a skirmish between rival fans.
  • (5) Benghazi's special forces, who declared support for Haftar, have skirmished with the militias he is targeting but the general himself has not yet been inside the city.
  • (6) But the confrontation quickly escalated into a series of skirmishes as the two sides played a deadly cat and mouse game in the centre of the city.
  • (7) On the face of it, this was little more than a skirmish in a town on Mali's north-east confines.
  • (8) For the UN negotiators in Qatar, this year's talks are just the skirmishes before the key date of 2015, when a new global agreement must be achieved.
  • (9) But Panorama's North Korea film, due to be broadcast on Monday, presents a challenge of a different order to the skirmish earlier last week about playing a song on the charts that could be taken as disrespectful to Lady Thatcher.
  • (10) No, I see it as being the right opportunity at the right time,” says a man desperate to break Wearside’s perennial relegation skirmishes.
  • (11) That interpretation was then corroborated by Labour MPs, who either hadn’t read the document or saw it as a handy weapon in skirmishes for control of the party’s election message.
  • (12) 4.08pm: Below the line, baerchen is upbeat : "Having watched England's superstar striker give the ball away umpty-nine times against Man City last night with some of the clumsiest touches seen since my brief skirmish with a girl from Hackenthorpe in 1971, they might as well give the job to Charles Chimp for all the difference it will make.
  • (13) It is the latest skirmish in the bitter infighting that has befallen Ukip since the election in which the party won 4 million votes but just one parliamentary seat.
  • (14) While the skirmish between Chris Christie and Paul over terrorism and its prevention via surveillance got a lot of media attention this week , it's more helpful to look at the general trend among potential candidates.
  • (15) Police fired volleys of tear gas canisters into a crowd of thousands - people in office clothes as well as youths in masks who had fought skirmishes throughout the day - scattering them into side streets and nearby hotels.
  • (16) When TV cameras start filming skirmishes in the crowd, Trump argues their focus on the protesters is evidence of liberal media bias.
  • (17) This rapidly escalating skirmish in American culture wars came after the Department of Justice sued North Carolina for a state law that forced people to only use public bathrooms that correspond to the gender listed on their birth certificates.
  • (18) In Tripoli, fighters from the GNC’s militia force, Libya Dawn , have turned on each other in several nights of skirmishing, even as pro-Tobruk forces battle Libya Dawn for control of the coastal highway west of the city.
  • (19) Skirmishes have flared outside Iraqi’s second largest city over the last few days with an airstrike on one of its main bridges on Sunday.
  • (20) It's the first battle cry in the pair's hair-raising physical and mental skirmish and has become something approaching a catchphrase.