armistice

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a formal agreement between belligerents to stop fighting, usually for a specified or indefinite period and without itself constituting a peace treaty

   The armistice stopped the fighting at eleven o'clock, but the peace treaty was signed later.

Borrowed from French armistice, from New Latin armistitium, formed from Latin arma ("weapons") + a stem of sistere ("to cause to stand; halt"). It therefore denotes a stopping of arms. Unlike a peace treaty, an armistice suspends hostilities without necessarily ending the legal state of war.

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