Definition of "combat"

"My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects; […]."

1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company

In less than eight weeks, five divisions of United States troops have moved into combat, some of them from bases more than 6,000 miles away. More men are on the way. Fighting in difficult country under every kind of hardship, American troops have held back overwhelming numbers of the communist invaders.

1950 September 1, Harry S. Truman, 0:56 from the start, in MP72-73 Korea and World Peace: President Truman Reports to the People‎, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162

Conditions were horrendous aboard most British naval vessels at the time. Scurvy and other diseases ran rampant, killing more seamen each year than all other causes combined, including combat.

2012 March, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 87

To combat with a blind man I disdain.

1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes