hawkish

comparative more hawkish · superlative most hawkish

1. Resembling a hawk in appearance or behaviour.

   Luisa locks her VW and crosses the scrub to the encampment. ... Several inhabitants approach but not in a friendly manner. “Yeah?” challenges a man, with a hawkish Native American complexion. “I presumed this was a public park.” “You presumed wrong. It’s private.”

   2004, David Mitchell, “Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery”, in Cloud Atlas, →ISBN, pages 122-123

2. Supportive of warlike foreign policy; bellicose; inclined toward military action.

   The Prime Minister could count on the support of a hawkish majority in Parliament to support the invasion.

   3 more examples

   This was not the first disagreement between the ultra-hawkish Bolton and the occasionally more intervention-skeptic Trump.

   2019 September 10, Christian Britschgi, “Ultra-Hawk John Bolton Fired From Trump Administration”, in Reason

   But before the letter was finalized, it drew denunciation from the hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

   2020 July 1, Dan Friedman, “Congressional Democrats Are Tying Themselves Into Knots About Whether to Restrict Aid to Israel”, in Mother Jones

   The Russian authorities said on Sunday that they had begun a murder investigation into the killing of Daria Dugina, 29, a hawkish political commentator who was the daughter of the philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, long a leading proponent of an imperialist Russia who has been urging the Kremlin to escalate its assault on Ukraine.

   2022 August 21, Anton Troianovski, “Brazen Attack Near Moscow Rattles Russians”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: bellicose · Antonyms: dovish

3. Favouring increasing interest rates; inclined towards increasing interest rates.

   The Federal Reserve's recent statement on the slowing of inflation was interpreted as hawkish by the market.

   Antonyms: dovish