Obs. rare. [ad. Gr. συμμαχία alliance in war, f. σύμμαχος adj. fighting together or in alliance, sb. an ally, f. σύν with + μάχη fight.]
1623. Cockeram, Symmachie, aide in warre.
1658. Phillips, Symmachy, a joyning in war against a common enemy.
1864. W. P. Dickson, trans. Mommsen’s Hist. Rome (ed. 2), I. vii. 415 Politically, the loose and refractory coalition could not stand a comparison with the firmly established Roman symmachy.
1911. A. Macphail, in Winnipeg Tribune, 15 July, 24/2. Happy as we are, or happy as we shall be, when, our ardent young men have coopered together “an aggregation of ‘equipollent’ bodies-politic within the magic circle of the Crown”, with a “symmachy” and a “hegemony”, each bound and each free, who can tell that this contraption, when contrived, would appeal to the humour of the Japanese for example?
1918. A. K. Davis, in Times Dispatch (Richmond, VA), 11 Aug., II. 4/5. Symmachy means a union of communities in war, an association of fighting units, a pooling of war-time interests, and a summing-up of battling activities.
