war chest

noun

: a fund accumulated to finance a war

broadly : a fund earmarked for a specific purpose, action, or campaign

Examples of war chest in a Sentence

The candidate held fund-raising dinners to build up his war chest.

Recent Examples on the Web

With the capability of hitting beyond even Moscow, the sophisticated high-precision long-range cruise missile could increase Ukraine’s ability to strike further into Russia and better target not only its military complex, but its oil industry, which has largely funded Putin’s war chest. —Caitlin McFall, FOXNews.com, 17 Oct. 2025

What To Know The latest sanctions package, announced September 19, seeks to further restrict European revenues funding Russia's war chest. —Micah McCartney, MSNBC Newsweek, 13 Oct. 2025

Any money coming into the club now was unlikely to form a kitty for Thomas Frank to delve into – and it is understood this £100m injection is not a new transfer war chest. —Chris Weatherspoon, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2025

Thanks to Google’s enormous war chest, Waymo has had the luxury to spend 16 years raking in data to create more precise self-driving cars, all with the hope of an eventual payoff. —Saahil Desai, The Atlantic, 2 Oct. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1871, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for war chest

• abreast
• accessed
• addressed
• appressed
• armrest
• arrest
• assessed
• attest
• backrest
• behest
• bequest
• caressed