Suezn.
/ˈsuːɪz/, /ˈsjuːɪz/, U.S. /suˈɛz/, /ˈsuˌɛz/ I. Compounds.
1. As a modifier. Designating the political crisis and short military conflict which followed the nationalization of the Suez Canal by President Nasser of Egypt in July 1956; of or relating to this crisis. Chiefly in Suez crisis.The crisis culminated in coordinated military action by the United Kingdom, France, and Israel beginning on 29 October 1956, but international criticism combined with economic pressure from the United States resulted in the withdrawal of forces in November of the same year. The outcome of the crisis is widely viewed as indicative of the decline of the United Kingdom and France as world powers in the second half of the 20th century.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > international politics or relations > [noun] > specific international crisis
Suez1956
1956 Daily Mail 28 July 1/2 Sir Anthony is also consulting the Commonwealth, and has asked all Governments concerned to give the Suez crisis top priority.
1956 Washington Post 6 Nov. a4/2 (heading) Mideast oil supply halved by Suez war.
1959 Daily Tel. 18 Dec. 20/5 It was in December, 1956, after the Suez crisis, that Britain drew $561 million from the Fund and arranged for a ‘stand-by’ of $738 million..to be drawn upon if necessary.
1961 Star-News (Pasadena, California) 1 May 24/7 Prime Minister Eden of Great Britain..lost international influence after the Suez debacle.
2016 T. Osman Islamism (2017) Notes 276 Britain, reeling from its strategic defeat in the Suez Crisis of 1956 and in an effort to cut ‘imperial costs’, decided to withdraw gradually from all its possessions ‘east of Eden’.
II. Simple uses.
2. The Suez crisis. See sense 1.
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1956 Daily Mail 1 Aug. 2/3 (heading) Suez: Butler calls Whips together.
1958 H. Nicolson Diary 18 June (1968) III. 350 I am very worried about the Lebanon situation, fearing it may prove a repetition of Suez.
1968 M. Jones Survivor iii. 55 She could not remember events like Suez and Hungary.
2005 Times Lit. Suppl. 22 Apr. 5/2 Suez was the coda to Britain's imperial era.
3. A crisis or situation likened to the Suez crisis, esp. in indicating declining international influence.
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1956 Bismarck (N. Dakota) Tribune 4 Aug. (Final ed.) 3/1 (headline) Can Panama Canal be another Suez?
1960 Daily Tel. 19 Nov. 8/2 No one will envy the United States a situation which may develop into a Suez on her own doorstep.
2020 BBC Monitoring Internat. Rep. (Nexis) 3 Apr. The ‘American Suez’. Top American newspapers are wondering whether COVID-19 will mark the beginning of the decline of American hegemony in the world.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2021; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1956