hostilehos‧tile /ˈhɒstaɪl $ ˈhɑːstl, ˈhɑːstaɪl/ ●○○ adjective 
Southampton fans gave their former coach a hostile reception. Carr wouldn’t meet Feng’s stare, which was openly hostile. his hostile attitudehostile to/towards The boy feels hostile towards his father.► see thesaurus at unfriendly2opposing a plan or idea very stronglyhostile to/towards Senator Lydon was hostile to our proposals.3belonging to an enemy: hostile territory4used to describe conditions that are difficult to live in, or that make it difficult to achieve somethinghostile environment/climate/terrain etc a guide to surviving in even the most hostile terrain Sales increased last year despite the hostile economic environment.5hostile takeover/bid a situation in which a company tries to buy another company that does not want to be bought
WORD ORIGINhostile
Origin:
1500-1600 French, Latin hostilis, from hostis ‘stranger, enemy’EXAMPLES FROM OTHER DICTIONARIES
- Hostile forces have taken control of cities in the north of the country.
- A hostile audience refused to listen to Senator Drummond's reply.
- He was hostile towards me when I arrived, and the situation did not improve over the next few days.
- Local people are hostile towards the plan, which would involve a significant tax increase.
- Lydon was openly hostile to any kind of criticism of the project.
- Several of the neighbors had become openly hostile to one another.
- The Antarctic survey team will be using vehicles specially designed to cope with the hostile environment.
- The ships had travelled thousands of miles through hostile waters to converge in the Atlantic.
- There was a crowd of hostile demonstrators waiting outside her door.
- In this hostile ideological jungle, little clearings of socialist culture had to be created painfully.
- It will be physical, confrontational and, quite likely, hostile.
- Life can evolve representations of itself capable of thriving in environments that seem hostile now.
- Like divorce, it is painful and sometimes very costly to buy out a hostile partner.
- Managers who did encounter hostile, judgmental, or disinterested reactions from their bosses rarely initiated such interactions again.
- Only from the windows of a derelict tower block squatted by women was there any deliberately hostile response.
- These conditions embraced the realities of survival in an often hostile environment, and the mysteries of birth and death.
- They were two women together now in a hostile world.
THESAURUSperson/voice/behaviour
behaving towards someone in a way that shows you are not interested in them or are not ready to talk to them or help them: · The hotel staff were unfriendly and unhelpful.· an unfriendly tone of voice· They didn't seem very friendly to strangers.· She gave him an unfriendly glance.
very unfriendly, and ready to argue or fight: · He was openly hostile towards me when I arrived.· A hostile crowd gathered outside the US embassy.
behaving towards other people as if you do not like them or care about them: · He gave her a cold stare.· a cold voice
unfriendly, especially because you are angry with someone: · When she spoke, her tone was frosty.· He got a frosty reception from his wife when he finally returned home (=she was not very friendly towards him).
[not before noun] not wanting to talk to other people or spend time with them, especially because you think you are better than them: · Some politicians are criticized for being too aloof.
unfriendly and always trying to start arguments with someone: · Why are Kate and John so antagonistic towards each other?
not interested in meeting other people or forming friendly relationships with them: · Sorry if I'm being antisocial, but I need to get my work done.· He was an antisocial loner with no friends.
Longman Language Activatorto think something is wrong to think that something is wrong and that it should not be allowed: · Lundgren is against abortion.· Most people are opposed to the privatization of the city's public transportation system.be strongly against: · There are two or three groups that are strongly against construction of the dam.be dead set against (=be very much against something): · She wants to marry him, but her parents are dead set against it.be strongly/totally/opposed to: · Senator Thompson remains totally opposed to any form of gun control.
to think that a plan, idea etc is wrong, and to try to prevent it from happening or succeeding: · Conservative MPs say they will oppose the new bill.strongly/vigorously oppose: · The Church strongly opposes same-sex marriage.
especially spoken to be against something, for example because it is new or different and you do not like things to change: · My grandmother doesn't agree with divorce.· There are many people in the US who do not agree with capital punishment.
to not support something, because you think something is wrong or immoral: · Fiona doesn't believe in having sex before marriage.· I don't believe in hitting children for any reason.
: anti-war/-smoking/-American etc against war, smoking, America etc: · Anti-war demonstrators gathered in the city's main square.· The anti-smoking laws seem ridiculous to me.· Anti-American sentiment remains high in the region.
someone who is hostile to a plan or idea opposes it very strongly, and expresses this in an angry way: · A hostile audience refused to listen to Senator Drummond's reply.hostile to/towards: · Local people are hostile towards the plan, which would involve a significant tax increase.openly hostile (=showing very clearly that you are hostile): · Lydon was openly hostile to any kind of criticism of the project.
behaving in a way that shows that you strongly disapprove of someone or something: · A lot of people refuse to work with Paula. Her manner is just too antagonistic.antagonistic to/towards: · The right-wing press has always been deeply antagonistic towards the Labour party.
difficult conditions difficult conditions are ones that make what you are doing more difficult: · Heavy snow will mean difficult driving conditions in some areas.· I'd like to thank the staff for working very hard in these difficult conditions.
British /unfavorable American unfavourable conditions make it difficult for someone to do something, or for something to exist: · Bloom states clearly that he believes that many schools provide unfavorable learning conditions.· Despite an unfavourable business environment, the stock market remained steady.unfavourable for: · Weather forecasters said winds and 13-foot waves may make conditions unfavorable for clean-up and salvage operations.
adverse conditions make it difficult for someone to do something, or for something to exist: · Planes are being kept on the ground because of the adverse weather.· In spite of adverse public opinion, the plan to privatize the railways continued.
use this to describe severe conditions or weather that make it difficult for people to live or travel: · The Antarctic survey team will be using vehicles specially designed to cope with the hostile environment.
someone you are fighting against, especially in a war someone you are fighting against, especially in a war: · You cannot attack an enemy unless you have precise information about their numbers and position. the enemy (=the army or country that your army or country is fighting against in a war): · They accused him of giving secret information to the enemy.common enemy (=an enemy you share with another person, country etc): · Britain and France decided to unite and fight against their common enemy.enemy/aircraft/soldiers/tanks etc: · One man was ordered to observe enemy aircraft and to warn when danger was imminent.
formal or written a person or country that wants to attack and defeat you or your country: · Mitterand drew France closer to the European union and to Germany, its former foe.friend or foe: · As we approached the camp a guard called out: "Who goes there -- friend or foe?''
formal or written a country or person that you are fighting against: · The peace talks proved that even great adversaries were capable of cooperation.· Symes grabbed his adversary by the throat and wrestled him to the ground.
hostile areas, soldiers etc are those belonging to a country or group that wants to attack and defeat your country, and are therefore dangerous: · Hostile forces have taken control of cities in the north of the country.· The ships had travelled thousands of miles through hostile waters to converge in the Atlantic.
not friendly · It's very difficult to work with Lindsay - she's so unfriendly.· I'm sorry if I sounded unfriendly on the phone - I was just tired.· The service at the hotel was bad and the staff weren't very friendly.unfriendly/not friendly to/towards · The other girls weren't openly unfriendly towards her, but they never invited her along with them.
behaving towards other people as if you do not like them or care about them: · His manner all evening was cold and unfriendly.· Next time she saw Harry he wasn't rude to her, just very cold.cold to: · She was oddly cold to him, and I wondered what had happened.
unfriendly to people who are visiting your home or country by not doing anything to make them feel welcome: · Generally, the people I met in the city were rude and inhospitable.· So many tourists had visited the monastery that the monks had grown somewhat inhospitable.
very unfriendly, and ready to argue with someone, criticize them, or fight with them: · There was a crowd of hostile demonstrators waiting outside her door.hostile to/towards: · He was hostile towards me when I arrived, and the situation did not improve over the next few days.openly hostile: · Several of the neighbors had become openly hostile to one another.
unfriendly and trying to cause arguments with someone: · I can't understand why he's being so antagonistic.antagonistic towards/to: · Why are Kate and John so antagonistic towards each other?
informal to ignore someone and be unfriendly to them, especially because they have upset or offended you: · After I got the promotion, a few of my co-workers started giving me the cold shoulder.
a group of people who are cliquey or cliquish are friendly to the other people within that group but not to the people outside it: · Everyone at the school was so cliquey, it was hard for me to make new friends.· It was a cliquish group, with the older members staying aloof from the younger ones.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE ENTRY Southampton fans gave their former coach a hostile reception. Carr wouldn’t meet Feng’s stare, which was openly hostile. his hostile attitude a guide to surviving in even the most hostile terrain Sales increased last year despite the hostile economic environment.COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES He prevented a hostile takeover (=when the takeover is not wanted by the company being bought) of the company.
Southampton fans gave their former coach a hostile reception. Carr wouldn’t meet Feng’s stare, which was openly hostile. his hostile attitude a guide to surviving in even the most hostile terrain Sales increased last year despite the hostile economic environment. (=showing anger)· Their attitude suddenly became more aggressive.
(=an offer to buy another company that does not want to be bought)· Airtours launched a £221m hostile bid for Owners Abroad.
(=with many difficulties and dangers)· It is difficult to see how anything can survive in such a hostile environment.
· When reporters arrived at the house, they got a hostile reception.
He prevented a hostile takeover (=when the takeover is not wanted by the company being bought) of the company.· Patterson had never flown so deep into enemy territory before.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE CORPUSADVERB· The feistier sort of Republican is as hostile to big government by indirect means as to the direct variety.· You also wrongly stated that we use scare tactics such as hostile looks or suggestive comments to keep women away.· Well, isn't that too bad? she thought angrily, and remained as hostile and unfriendly as he was.
· Equally, do not be discouraged by hostile letters to the editor or even hostile editorials.· In 1757 Woolman made a second journey into the South, where he found slave owners tense and even hostile to him.· Before visiting the remote north, I had rather expected the folk there to be rough, uncouth, possibly even hostile.· The belief that technics must replace politics makes technocrats sceptical about and even hostile towards politicians and political institutions.· It might have been compassionate, or amused, or even hostile.· People frequently end up disillusioned, and even hostile to the part the church has played, rather than finding it helpful.· First, the view that oral culture is irrelevant or even hostile to the acquisition of literacy.· A pupil entering a new class may initially define the situation as threatening and even hostile.
· This can be traced in the working-class response to birth-control propaganda, which was often extremely hostile.· I would say that Courtaulds is reasonably healthy in an extremely hostile environment.· The experience was not one much enjoyed by the Labour party, certain sections of which were extremely hostile to the arrangement.
· Amid an increasingly hostile war of words, Finley has criticized Racicot for reneging on a promise to cooperate with federal authorities.
· The display was less hostile than the girl riots of today are meant to be.· The modern university has been more welcoming and less hostile to women.
· Brown as a more radical, more hostile and more dangerous rival.· If I understand the cultural pattern correctly, they should be more hostile to the people up the hill than to us.· Public opinion has grown more hostile, however, as a result of a series of recent accidents and cover-ups.· And that he was getting more and more hostile.· These found, in the main, that Blacks had a consistently more hostile attitude to the police.· The Commission has been more and more hostile to his activities.· Some male anti-suffragists used a more hostile and demeaning picture of women's place reminiscent of Spencerian Darwinism to justify their arguments.· Kozyrev and Filatov were replaced by officials with views more hostile to the West.
· The sack of Rome in 410 marked the most hostile period in the relations between Alaric and the imperial court.· The Michaelmas term saw me at my most hostile.
· The relationship is often hostile rather than cooperative, but this can be treated as just a reversal of sign.· Vigorous and often hostile debate has persisted among the advocates of these three conceptions of how politics works.· Not surprisingly, relations between the two black communities are often hostile.· These conditions embraced the realities of survival in an often hostile environment, and the mysteries of birth and death.· They have few outside contacts and white society is uncaring and often hostile towards them.
· But as her relationship with Eric deepened, he'd grown wary, sometimes openly hostile.· General have been openly hostile toward Doctors Community.· Dub reggae had themes dealing with the overthrow of Babylon and which were openly hostile to the white world.· As it was, those legislators owed black voters nothing and were therefore free to take positions openly hostile to them.· But the pair, openly hostile by the end of last year, will patch up their mutual differences.· Many of the smaller cities are openly hostile toward the City of Los Angeles.· The opposition parties had mostly been unenthusiastic, if not openly hostile, about parity legislation.· The city population was not openly hostile but the humans were watched silently as they made their way through the streets.
· The possibility of a potentially hostile power occupying bases in Dalmatia was a matter of life and death to the republic.· Unfettered free trade is potentially hostile to environmental concerns and may put human health and safety at risk.
· I am not quite so hostile to them as other hon. Members are.· I took him to therapy-and he was so angry and so hostile, and so incapable of dealing with his impulses.· The medium that she was so hostile to served her well.· That was why he had been so hostile at the beginning, why he'd known all about the family.· Why is the United States so hostile towards you?
· They can be a very hostile crowd when you start teaching them, though.· And he started out as a very hostile child.· Consternation on all sides-and a lot of very hostile criticism of both Skakkebaek's methodology and his conclusions.· He may also be very hostile towards himself, belittling himself.· Really, he was very hostile to foreigners.· He was very anti-social, very hostile.· Initially, Hofmann was very hostile to Perkin's intention to leave academic research to exploit his discovery commercially.· Television has altered people's lives immensely -I feel very hostile to it.
NOUN· A Ministry of Defence spokesman said there was no evidence of hostile action.
· A combination of lax discipline and hostile attitudes on the part of both parents encourages very aggressive and poorly controlled behaviour in their offspring.· Emily paced around the book-lined study and blamed her father for his hostile attitude to Craig.· Given Ben Silcock's apparently hostile attitude to authority, how would supervision work?· These found, in the main, that Blacks had a consistently more hostile attitude to the police.· Her first impressions, she supposed, had been gained merely from his hostile attitude at the fountain.
· On the other, there are politically hostile audiences.· A hostile audience would, in minutes, change into one of sympathy and cooperation.· Mr Grosz was the only senior politician yesterday with the courage to stand up for Communism in front of a hostile audience.
· But some societies fear hostile bids - a subject on the agenda at the Building Societies Association council meeting tomorrow.· In a hostile bid, very little will be forthcoming.· Most bids were hostile, or were responses to actual or threatened hostile bids.· For example, if the sale is a demerger or unbundling process used to counter a hostile bid, timing will be critical.· There have been a few hostile bids, most notably that by Paribas for a conglomerate, Navigation Mixte.· But shareholding rules make hostile bids hard to win.· However, because a Court Scheme requires the co-operation of the target it is not a viable alternative to a hostile bid.
· Private practice is burdened by bureaucratic demands in a hostile climate.
· They can be a very hostile crowd when you start teaching them, though.· When finally the passengers were allowed to disembark, Gandhi was attacked by a hostile crowd.· The coach was returned to the capital under armed escort, where its occupants were greeted by a silent, hostile crowd.· There was a hostile crowd and to save himself and prevent Sweeney from escaping, Rose hit him twice with his baton.· In Antrim police had to rescue a man from a hostile crowd when he was pulled from his car.· Dinkins attempted to visit the area on Aug. 21, but was repelled by hostile crowds.
· Biomorphs should interact, in the computer, with a simulation of a hostile environment.· They died for their quest for comfort in a hostile environment.· These conditions embraced the realities of survival in an often hostile environment, and the mysteries of birth and death.· Once again, you navigate dark passageways and hostile environments, killing everything that moves.· They are used to dealing with harsh conditions in a hostile environment.· Objectionable pictures have been deemed to contribute to a hostile environment.· I would say that Courtaulds is reasonably healthy in an extremely hostile environment.· Against a panoramic backdrop, we see orphaned P.K. growing up in a hostile environment.
· Otherwise, architecture was largely reduced to stubby tower-tops, inky and indigo, from which hostile fire poured.· Crews had to be ready for hostile fire from the ground.· None of these sources of hostile fire was ever pinned down.· He was the first killed in hostile fire since the United Nations assumed control of the mission 10 months ago.
· Security advisers are confident the prince will be relatively safe from hostile forces.· There are times when it seems that only hostile forces exist, that no helpful ones are about.· And men can be bewildered by the co-existence of these apparently hostile forces.· He built high walls to protect his people from hostile forces.· But we also attribute to him the power to mediate between those same concerns and the hostile forces of disease.
· The high-handed way in which Washington dropped the idea on its Western partners accounts for some the hostile reaction it has received.· Despite the hostile reaction, Prusiner continued his research, publishing papers and giving lectures that some called near-religious experiences.· The environment - urban or rural - and the risk of hostile reaction from locals.
· The hostile reception of Alford's views led him to reflect that he was being denied the parliamentary right of free speech.· They had not been prepared for the fierce extremes of climate, or for the hostile reception of the natives.· He didn't seem in the least put-out by the hostile reception.· The two men were confused by the hostile reception the mob gave them, and they had reason to be.· But when a camera crew arrived at the rectory, they got a hostile reception.· April 1983 Generally speaking, however, family planning has met with a hostile reception.
· Only from the windows of a derelict tower block squatted by women was there any deliberately hostile response.· I shall describe later the hostile response to this demand, putting it into the context of sixteenth-century protest and rebellion.
· But it's now facing a hostile takeover bid by a Suffolk based-brewery, Greene King.· The Abingdon-based Morland brewers will know tomorrow if they've managed to fight off a hostile takeover bid.· Round one to Morlands ... brewery fight off hostile takeover.· The only way they can protect themselves against hostile takeovers is to get the stock price up.· Shareholders can protect themselves from hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts by not agreeing to sell their shareholdings at a discount.· The only difference with hostile takeovers may be that the prices are higher.
· The deeper forests are virtually hostile territory where few humans venture.· The North, on the other hand, would have to stretch its supply lines over vast areas of hostile territory.· He was really on his own now, and in less than two minutes he would be flying over hostile territory.· Most of our navigation was pure pilotage and dead reckoning over unfamiliar, sometimes hostile territory and some very bad weather.· They are in forbidding, hostile territory.
· They were two women together now in a hostile world.· Gradually this hardens and the animal can again venture into a hostile world.· Local communities became less a defence against the pressures of a hostile world, more a basis for active resistance:.· He found himself in a hostile world and yet adapted by means of a specialism that nobody else thought worthwhile.
PHRASES FROM THE ENTRY
1angry and deliberately unfriendly towards someone, and ready to argue with them: - But some societies fear hostile bids - a subject on the agenda at the Building Societies Association council meeting tomorrow.
- Jobs under threat ... Dowty loses the hostile takeover battle.
- Most bids were hostile, or were responses to actual or threatened hostile bids.
- Round one to Morlands ... brewery fight off hostile takeover.
- The only difference with hostile takeovers may be that the prices are higher.
Southampton fans gave their former coach a hostile reception. Carr wouldn’t meet Feng’s stare, which was openly hostile. his hostile attitudehostile to/towards The boy feels hostile towards his father.► see thesaurus at unfriendly2opposing a plan or idea very stronglyhostile to/towards Senator Lydon was hostile to our proposals.3belonging to an enemy: hostile territory4used to describe conditions that are difficult to live in, or that make it difficult to achieve somethinghostile environment/climate/terrain etc a guide to surviving in even the most hostile terrain Sales increased last year despite the hostile economic environment.5hostile takeover/bid a situation in which a company tries to buy another company that does not want to be bought