Definition of "truce"

truce

/tɹuːs/

noun
plural truces
1. A period of time in which no fighting takes place due to an agreement between the opposed parties.
  Quotations
  [I]n about ſix VVeeks or tvvo Months, the Dyſentery gave Truce, in vvhich Time I vvas often fretted vvith ſtrangurious Symptoms.A figurative use.
  1732 October 1 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Dr. Cranstoun, “The Objections against a Regimen, Especially a Milk, Seed, and Vegetable Diet, Considered. The Case of the Learned and Ingenous Dr. Cranstoun, in a Letter to the Author at His Desire, in Dr. Cranstoun’s Own Words.”, in George Cheyne, The English Malady: Or, A Treatise of Nervous Diseases of All Kinds, […], London: […] G[eorge] Strahan […]; Bath, Somerset: J. Leake, published 1733, part III (Containing Variety of Cases that Illustrate and Confirm the Foregoing Method of Cure. […]), page 321
2. An agreement between opposed parties in which they pledge to cease fighting for a limited time.
  Quotations
  They should meet that night on some neutral spot to ratify the truce.
  1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter IV, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […]
  [T]hey marked their truce by each of them, Aesir and Vanir alike, one by one spitting into a vat. As their spit mingled, so was their agreement made binding.
  2017, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 108