pugna

Pugna, pugnae, f., first declension. It comes from pugnus, "fist", so the picture underneath is hand-to-hand, not a manoeuvre on a map; the verb pugno follows it.

Latin grades its fighting words more finely than English does. Pugna is a fight or an engagement, proelium a formal battle between armies, certamen a contest of any sort including a peaceful one, and bellum the whole war. Pugnam committere is to join battle. The family gives pugnax, expugno ("take by storm", hence impregnable when negated) and oppugno, and English inherits pugnacious, impugn, repugnant and, through the Italian, pugilist.