A large group of warships or boats.

A Spanish word that originally meant simply “armed,” *armada* is now used in Spanish-speaking nations as the name of their national navies. In English, the word usually has historical overtones. The Great Armada of 1588 was a 120-ship fleet sent by Philip II of Spain in an attempt to invade Elizabethan England; it was defeated when British forces lit eight ships afire and sent them sailing into the Armada's midst, then blocked the passage to the south so that the remaining ships were forced to sail northward around Britain in order to return home, causing dozens more ships to be wrecked in the stormy northern seas. Today we sometimes use the word humorously for fleets of fishing boats, rowboats, or canoes.

An agreement to stop fighting a war; a truce.

Just as the *solstice* is the time of year when the sun (Latin, *sol*) “stands still,” an armistice is an agreement for armies to stop where they are and lay down their arms. The word is associated with the truce that marked the end of World War I on the Western Front, where the Allies had confronted Germany, in 1918. The day of the ceasefire, November 11th (“the eleventh day of the eleventh month”), was for many years called Armistice Day; today it's known as Veterans Day in the U.S. and as Remembrance Day in Canada and Australia.

A place where weapons are made or stored.

An armory has traditionally been a military storage compound where machine guns, rifles, pistols, ammunition, parts, and accessories are kept. In the U.S., National Guard and Reserve units often use armories as training headquarters in peacetime. Ever since George Washington established the country's first armory in Springfield in 1777, arsenals and armories of the Army Ordnance Corps have had a remarkable history of arms manufacture.

Tending to remove any feelings of unfriendliness or distrust.

A defeated country is sometimes forced to *disarm* (give up its weapons), and research may be aimed at disarming a deadly virus (making it incapable of doing damage). But the meaning of the adjective *disarming* isn't quite so physical. If you say your nephew has a disarming smile, you mean that his smile's warmth and genuineness disarm the people he meets of any possible suspicion or criticism and of any verbal weapons they might have used against him.

A rapid or sudden increase or rise.

An upsurge in drug use sometimes leads to an upsurge in crime. An upsurge of flu cases can be cause for alarm. And an upsurge of fury at overpaid CEOs might lead to new legislation to restrain high salaries. We seem to use *upsurge* more in negative contexts than in positive ones, but not always; we usually welcome an upsurge of consumer confidence, an upsurge in new-car sales, or an upsurge in the stock market.

A usually violent attempt to take control of a government; a rebellion or uprising.

Insurgencies fall into the category of “irregular warfare,” since an insurgency normally lacks the organization of a revolution, even though it has the same aims. Revolutions often begin within a country's armed forces, whereas insurgencies often arise in remote areas, where they gain strength slowly by winning the confidence of rural populations. An insurgency may be based on ethnic or religious identity, or its roots may be basically political or economic. Since insurgencies are rarely strong enough to face a national army head-on, *insurgents* (often called *guerrillas*) tend to use such tactics as bombing, kidnapping, hostage taking, and hijacking.

A person taking military or political action against guerrillas or revolutionaries.

A counterinsurgent is, as you might guess, someone who combats an insurgency. *Counterinsurgency* efforts often attempt to win the “hearts and minds” of a population by hiring and paying local villagers, opening health clinics and schools, organizing sports programs, and providing agricultural assistance. These terms were first used to describe the American effort to strengthen the South Vietnamese government against communist forces in the 1960s—an effort that eventually ended in defeat.

Rising again into life, activity, or prominence.

*Resurgent* means literally a “rising again” (see RE). We may speak of a resurgent baseball team, a resurgent steel industry, the *resurgence* of jogging, or a resurgence of violence in a war zone. *Resurgence* is particularly prominent in its Italian translation, *risorgimento*. In the 19th century, when the Italian peninsula consisted of a number of small independent states, a popular movement known as the Risorgimento managed to unify the peninsula and create the modern state of Italy in 1870.