Origin of plurality of "wars" in phrases like "Star Wars"

There are a number of compounds in English of the form "noun wars," e.g. "Star Wars," "mommy wars," "culture wars." Why do these show "wars" in the plural? It seems like normally "wars" would pertain to a sequence of conflicts with more or less well-defined endpoints, whereas these phrases actually describe conflicts that have been going on more or less continually (I'd hesitate to say the conflicts are unitary since at least the latter two are quite complex and multifaceted phenomena; but then again actual armed conflicts are often complicated too).

I wonder if this is perhaps a snowclone; if so, what would the original member of the set be?

It seems like normally "wars" would pertain to a sequence of conflicts with more or less well-defined endpoints

Why so? We find, for example, theRoman-Etruscan WarsandThe Wars of the Roses, yet thosewarshad no clearly defined endpoints. There were generally no official peace treaties designating the end of those conflicts - they raged on for a certain period, and were then resolved, for whatever reason.

The simple answer to your question is that since theculture warsorthe browser warsare compromised of numerous points of conflict within a fairly discreet period of time, they are referred to aswars. There is no specific endpoint to the individual conflicts, but they are, at large, confined to a particular era, and in a sense characterize that era, because of their scope, and the public's awareness of them.

So, in such context, the use of wars is used to designated a group of related, well known and important conflicts that occur within a fairly discreet period of time. Although each individual conflict might have no specific endpoint, the era characterizing such conflicts does. The culture wars are still being fought, but at some point in the future, they will end, and humanity will move on to otherwars. Thebrowser warsended some years ago. No clear victor emerged and no peace treaty was signed, but no one is really fighting those battles orwars any more. When exactly didthe browser wars end? Hard to say. But it's clear that today they are over, and we have entered a new period - that ofthe Tablet Wars.

I think the use of the plural is to make the term less specific. To use the singular, there must be a particular identifiable conflict. By using the plural the reader will think about the conflict only in generalities.

One does not refer to the "cold wars" but rather to the singular Cold War, even though it was not actually a war and did not have a precisely defined beginning and end. The Vietnam War had a precisely defined ending, but the specific beginning date is a bit fuzzy. But in each case it's immediately clear which conflict is being described.

When referred to as the noun wars, the noun in question describes what the conflict is about, whereas when a particular conflict is described the name usually describes who was fighting or where the conflict occurred. Sometimes you can even describe the same conflict in both ways. One could refer specifically to Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, but in another context, one might refer to them as "oil wars."

The Wars of the Roses (or Balkan Wars, World Wars, etc.) are a different situation. In these cases there are actually a group of related but well-defined conflicts. Today the Wars of the Roses tend to be referred to most often in the plural because, outside of historians studying them in detail, the individual conflicts making them up are rarely significant.

Because this use of the plural to denote lack of specificity appears elsewhere in the language, I don't consider it a snowclone, although I wouldn't be surprised if it's more common post-Star Wars. The oldest example that comes to mind are the "sheep wars" which occurred in the 19th century, but I doubt this was the first example.