the condition or status of a military force or other organization when operating under a state of war or as if a state of war existed
Word origin
[1890–95]This word is first recorded in the period 1890–95. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: blanket roll, blip, honky-tonk, neoclassicism, plein-air
Examples of 'war footing' in a sentence
war footing
Few of their ships were on a war footing.
Globe and Mail (2003)
France is now psychologically and politically on a war footing.
Times, Sunday Times (2015)
The city is not on a war footing.
Times, Sunday Times (2016)
If it means putting economies on a war footing, fine.
Times, Sunday Times (2009)
Maybe it is just because a startling measure like this persuades people that things really are on an economic war footing.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
Drone pilots must put themselves on a war footing and then go home to their families: it becomes harder to separate the two.
Times, Sunday Times (2016)
And yet despite the inflammatory rhetoric, there was little sense of a country on a war footing.
Times, Sunday Times (2013)
Housing was only brought off a war footing by a policy that turned the latter into the former: the sale of council houses.
Times, Sunday Times (2008)
It is worth little unless western intelligence agencies are simultaneously operating on a war footing to preempt plots and eliminate the plotters.
Times, Sunday Times (2014)
Brisbane had been put on a war footing earlier, with 15 military helicopters brought in to help rescue efforts.