alliance
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alliance
noun accordance, adhesion, affiliation, agreement, alignment, amalgamation, association, band, bloc, cartel, centralization, chain, coalescence, coalition, combination, combine, compact, company, concert, confederacy, conformity, conjunction, connection, connivance, consolidation, consortium, contract, convention, cooperative, corporation, covenant, fusion, integration, junction, league, merger, pact, partnership, peace, pool, rapprochement, relationship, sodality, syndicate, treaty, trust, unionSee also: adhesion, affiliation, agreement, association, band, cartel, centralization, chain, coaction, coalescence, coalition, cohabitation, collusion, committee, compact, concert, confederacy, conformity, conjunction, connection, connivance, consortium, contact, contract, contribution, cooperative, corporation, federation, integration, kinship, league, loyalty, marriage, matrimony, merger, mutual understanding, nexus, organization, pact, partnership, peace, pool, propinquity, rapport, rapprochement, relation, society, sodality, syndicate, treaty, understanding
ALLIANCE, relationship. The union or connexion of two persons or families by marriage, which is also called affinity. This is derived from the Latin preposition ad and ligare, to bind. Vide Inst 1, 10, 6; Dig 38, 10, 4, 3; and Affinity.
ALLIANCE, international law. A contract, treaty, or league between two
sovereigns or states, made to insure their safety and common defence.
2. Alliances made for warlike purposes are divided in general into
defensive and offensive; in the former the nation only engages to defend her
ally in case he be attacked; in the latter she unites with him for the
purpose of making an attack, or jointly waging the war against another
nation. Some alliances are both offensive and defensive; and there seldom is
an offensive alliance which is not also defensive. Vattel, B. 3, c. 6, Sec.
79; 2 Dall. 15.