[Cf. F. cri de guerre.] A cry (whether a shout or a significant name or phrase) uttered by a body of fighters to encourage each other in charging the enemy or in rallying to the fray.
1748. Anson’s Voy., I. iii. 30. Orellana placed his hands hollow to his mouth, and bellowed out the war-cry used by those savages.
1757. [Burke], Europ. Settlem. Amer., I. II. iv. 187. Setting up a most tremendous shout, which they call the war cry, they pour a storm of musquet bullets upon the enemy.
1808. Jamieson, Slogan, the war-cry, or gathering word, of a clan.
1815. Elphinstone, Acc. Caubul, II. v. 216. Proclaiming the Selaut (or war-cry of the Mussulmans).
1836. Thirlwall, Greece, III. xxiii. 290. The army followed with an appalling war-cry.
b. fig.
1848. Sir J. Graham, in C. S. Parker, Life & Lett. (1907), II. 69. A further reform of the representation will be the stalking-horse of the ambitious, and the war-cry of their dupes.
1880. (title) The War-Cry and Official Gazette of the Salvation Army.
1902. L. Stephen, Stud. Biog., IV. ii. 72. He was content with any general principle which would serve for a war-cry.
