Meaning of guerrilla in English

guerrilla

(also guerilla)

/ɡəˈrɪl.ə/ us

/ɡəˈrɪl.ə/

a member of an unofficial military group that is trying to change the government by making sudden, unexpected attacks on the official army forces:

A small band of guerrillas has blown up a train in the mountains.

guerrilla warfare

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insurgent

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The former guerrilla leader has become the pivot on which the country's emerging political stability revolves.
Planes bombed the guerrilla positions yesterday in an attempt to flush out snipers from underground tunnels.
The army don't want to become engaged in guerrilla warfare.
Even as the funeral took place, guerrillas hidden nearby let off a fresh volley of machine-gun fire.
Invading troops met with obstinate resistance by guerrilla forces.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Activism & pressure groups

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Taking action against people in power

guerrilla

adjective [ before noun ]

/ɡəˈrɪl.ə/ us

/ɡəˈrɪl.ə/

using unusual methods to create or get attention for your ideas, art, products, etc., usually ones that cost little money and involve using public spaces:

He films on the streets, with a tiny budget - this is guerrilla film-making.

A new work by the "guerrilla" artist known as Banksy has appeared.

See also

guerrilla gardening

guerrilla marketing

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He is a young guerrilla filmmaker best known for his low-budget, high-concept first feature made on an iPhone.
They staged a guerrilla gallery in the air terminal's corridors, posting passenger drawings on walls.
The poets have done guerrilla performances in Wendy's parking lots and inside a McDonald's.
The bags, equipped with a label advertising the website, are given away to strangers in "guerrilla" events.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Unique and unusual

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Advertising and marketing

(Definition of guerrilla from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

guerrilla | American Dictionary

guerrilla

noun [ C ]

/ɡəˈrɪl·ə/

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a member of an unofficial military group that is trying to change the government by making sudden, unexpected attacks on the official army forces:

guerrilla warfare

(Definition of guerrilla from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of guerrilla

guerrilla

During the war, judges and prosecutors often took bribes, including from those representing accused guerrillas.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

As explained above, the guerrillas had to enforce ever more drastic measures in attempting to keep civilians under their control and prevent them from fleeing.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

While the accusation of treason often came from guerrillas themselves, the witchcraft cases were often brought before guerrillas by civilians.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The guerrillas' rise to power within the movement was only complete in 1920, however, and was still contested thereafter.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Throughout the revolution, then, the guerrillas were disproportionately skilled, trained, and urban.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Here, 22 per cent of a sample of 588 guerrillas were brothers living together.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Perhaps prior exposure to cultural nationalism helped turn young men into guerrillas ?

From the Cambridge English Corpus

What, if any, was the relationship between bandits and incipient ' modern ' guerrillas, and how far were they superseded by them ?

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Indeed, some people evaluated the guerrillas' power as a threat to the elderly.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

After the investigations had been concluded, the civilian community and the guerrillas would be gathered and asked to decide on the form of punishment.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Of course, the guerrillas were mostly young men, and their leaders, especially in the beginning, came from outside the region.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

All their ' voluntary ' activity was under surveillance by the guerrillas, and early in the war by the government as well.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

How seriously should we take the guerrillas' fiery rhetoric and violent, but limited, paramilitary operations?

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Within one year, 12,362 guerrillas, some 20,000 soldiers and around 30,000 civil defence guards were left unemployed.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

With speed and impressive coordination, the guerrillas manoeuvred through the gaps to attain their objective.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all examples of guerrilla

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with guerrilla

guerrilla

These are words often used in combination with guerrilla.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

armed guerrilla

In 1947 the party initiated armed guerrilla struggle.

From

Wikipedia

This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.

guerrilla activity

Despite the 'wishful thinking' of some observers, reports that had recently crossed his desk noted that guerrilla activity was ineffective and over-valued because of poor training and leadership.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

guerrilla attacks

It is partly, of course, because of the guerrilla attacks.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

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What is the pronunciation of guerrilla?

Translations of guerrilla

in Chinese (Traditional)

遊擊隊員, 出奇制勝的，用奇招的…

Meaning of guerrilla in English

guerrilla | American Dictionary

Examples of guerrilla

Collocations with guerrilla

guerrilla

Translations of guerrilla

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