| aggravate, | embitter, | heighten, | intensify, | make worse. |
| augment, | enhance, | increase, | magnify, |
ALLIANCE.
Synonyms:
| coalition, | confederation, | fusion, | partnership, |
| compact, | federation, | league, | union. |
| confederacy, |
Alliance is in its most common use a connection formed by treaty between sovereign states as for mutual aid in war. Partnership is a mercantile word; alliance chiefly political or matrimonial. Coalition is oftenest used of political parties; fusion is now the more common word in this sense. In an alliance between nations there is no surrender of sovereignty, and no union except for a specified time and purpose. League and alliance are used with scarcely perceptible difference of meaning. In a confederacy or confederation there is an attempt to unite separate states in a general government without surrender of sovereignty. Union implies so much concession as to make the separate states substantially one. Federation is mainly a poetic and rhetorical word expressing something of the same thought, as in Tennyson's "federation of the world," Locksley Hall, l. 128. The United States is not a confederacy nor an alliance; the nation might be called a federation, but prefers to be styled a federal union.
Antonyms:
| antagonism, | disunion, | enmity, | schism, | separation, |
| discord, | divorce, | hostility, | secession, | war. |
Prepositions:
Alliance with a neighboring people; against the common enemy; for offense and defense; alliance of, between, or among nations.