havoc [LME] A victorious army commander would once have given his soldiers a signal to start plundering: he would cry havoc. The sense of plunder gradually passed into destructive devastation, and the army itself would make havoc [LME]. Outside the battlefield other people and other circumstances eventually began to work havoc or, from the 20th century, to create or wreak havoc and to play havoc with something. The word havoc itself is a medieval alteration of French havot of unknown origin, but probably Germanic. The word was memorably used by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar: ‘Cry “Havoc!”, and let slip the dogs of war.’