War and Peace

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From the title of the novel War and Peace by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, noted for its considerable length.

Proper noun[edit]

War and Peace

  1. (often attributive) A text or utterance of remarkable length or complexity.
    • 1998, Bill Camarda, Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, IDG Books Worldwide:
      You get an exhaustive, War and Peace-style description of your system.
    • 2005, Lauren Mechling, Laura Moser, The Rise and Fall of a 10th Grade Social Climber, Random House Australia:
      She proceeded to launch into this War and Peace–length speech about honesty and community and respect and all those other topics that seriously get on my nerves.
    • 2012, J. M. Barry, L. C. Coats, Selling in Today's Economy: Applying Laws of Physics and Performance Art to Gain the Cutting Edge, iUniverse:
      I will refer to this as the War and Peace e-mail—a painfully long e-mail that many will not read. You remember Tolstoy's War and Peace, a very, very long and thick book. The consumer response to the initial e-mail was less than 1 percent.