Cold War

Meanings

1. The period of hostility short of open war between the Soviet Bloc and the Western powers, especially the United States, between 1945 and 1991.

1. A period of hostile relations between rivals where direct open warfare between them is largely undesired and avoided; especially, either the Cold War or Cold War II.

Etymology

Coined by American journalist Herbert Bayard Swope in 1947, in a speech he wrote for Bernard Baruch (1870–1965), an American financier and adviser to President Woodrow Wilson.