levy war

Hi,

I have a few quesitons about this phrase:
Is it used in modern English?
Can it be used with the indefinite article: levy a war?
Is it synonumous with wage a war?

Tom

It was usually "levy war", e.g. "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them" (US Constitution). The online Compact OED marks this usage archaic. I would describe it as a historical term. There is a sense in "levy" of commencing to wage war, rather than to continue to wage war.

Thanks, MM for your response. I have found it in the Declararion of Independence ([...]and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war[...]).


AS for a synonym how about declare a war then, would it be closer in meaning?

Tom

It means rather more to "wage war".

I agree with gasman, to declare war is to make a formal statement that your state is, from that moment on, at war with another. You can wage war without declaring it, and I think that is implied in my example from the US Constitution.

Here is a great example from the OED which makes this clear that war is levied without being declared:

"The Syrian King [...] Assassin-like had levied Warr, Warr unproclam'd."