[f. WAR sb.1 + CRAFT sb.]
1. Cunning and skill in warfare; the art of conducting a war.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Lancs. (1662), 124. Duke Hambleton … had Officers who did Ken the War-craft, as well as any of our Age.
1846. Eclectic Rev., XIX. 177. The leading secret of Napoleon’s war-craft, consisted in an inversion of the current rules of warfare.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (1877), V. ii. 370. Sir De Lacy Evans, a veteran well skilled in that part of the war-craft which belongs to the hour of combat.
1897. E. Conybeare, Hist. Cambridgesh., 98. The king plainly felt the matter one of extreme urgency, needing his own presence, with all his warcraft and statecraft, to deal with it.
2. War-vessels collectively.
1898. Daily News, 6 Aug., 5/6. Claiming the right to lock the Bosphorean gates of the Euxine against the fleets of the other Powers after passing our superfluous warcraft outwards.
