arsenal of democracy

noun

Etymology

Introduced to wide usage (although probably not first used) by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in December, 1940.

Definitions

  1. The United States of America, as supplier of extensive materiel support to U.S. allies…

    The United States of America, as supplier of extensive materiel support to U.S. allies during World War II; or post-war U.S. as the manufacturer and possessor of the greatest quantity of advanced military weaponry in the world, in the service of defending governments favouring the United States, mostly democracies.

    • In a fireside shout Franklin Roosevelt this week told Business and Labor that they would have to speed up the job of making the U. S. the "arsenal of democracy".
    • The United States, he contends, is no longer the arsenal of democracy. Nor does it have a clear technological advantage over the Soviet Union.
  2. Alternative form of arsenal of democracy.

The neighborhood

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sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA