<P> The Oxford English Dictionary cited the first known usage in the English language to a Scottish newspaper : the People 's Journal in 1848 : `` A war among the great powers is now necessarily a world - war . '' The term `` world war '' had been used in 1850 by Karl Marx and his associate , Friedrich Engels , in The Class Struggles in France . Rasmus B. Anderson in 1889 described an episode in Teutonic mythology as a `` world war '' ( Swedish : världskrig ) , justifying this description by a line in an Old Norse epic poem , `` Völuspá : folcvig fyrst i heimi '' ( `` The first great war in the world '' . ) German writer August Wilhelm Otto Niemann had used the term `` world war '' in the title of his anti-British novel , Der Weltkrieg : Deutsche Träume ( The World War : German Dreams ) in 1904 , published in English as The Coming Conquest of England . </P>
<P> The Oxford English Dictionary cited the first known usage in the English language to a Scottish newspaper : the People 's Journal in 1848 : `` A war among the great powers is now necessarily a world - war . '' The term `` world war '' had been used in 1850 by Karl Marx and his associate , Friedrich Engels , in The Class Struggles in France . Rasmus B. Anderson in 1889 described an episode in Teutonic mythology as a `` world war '' ( Swedish : världskrig ) , justifying this description by a line in an Old Norse epic poem , `` Völuspá : folcvig fyrst i heimi '' ( `` The first great war in the world '' . ) German writer August Wilhelm Otto Niemann had used the term `` world war '' in the title of his anti-British novel , Der Weltkrieg : Deutsche Träume ( The World War : German Dreams ) in 1904 , published in English as The Coming Conquest of England . </P>
when was the term world war ii first used
when was the term world war ii first used
Scottish newspaper : the People 's Journal in 1848
Scottish newspaper : the People 's Journal in 1848