Meanings
- pluralplural onlyLiterary people, authors — literati — who promote wars of aggression.
I am not, in this instance, referring to the belligerati - Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and chums - ever-present in the liberal press on both sides of the Atlantic.
2005, Tariq Ali, Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography Of The Sixties, page 192 more examples
They are the belligerati who are given opinion columns and radio talkback programs; who are accorded the status of minor celebrities; and there can at times seem no end to the uniquely Australian cross of their public bullying
2011, Andrew Charlton, Man-Made World, page 88Since neoconservatives and the liberal belligerati have sought to appropriate these ideological resources on behalf of imperialism, aspects of this question will be examined in chapter 1.
2011, Richard Seymour, American Insurgents: A Brief History of American Anti-Imperialism, page xviii
Origin
Blend of belligerent + literati which is also the plural of belligerātus.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
belligerati. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/belligerati
“belligerati.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/belligerati. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “belligerati,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/belligerati.
Source: belligerati on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.