The Collaborative International Dictionary
Contend \Con*tend"\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Contended; p. pr. & vb. n. Contending.] [OF. contendre, L. contendere, -tentum; con- + tendere to strech. See Tend.]
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To strive in opposition; to contest; to dispute; to vie; to quarrel; to fight.
For never two such kingdoms did contend Without much fall of blood.
--Shak.The Lord said unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle.
--Deut. ii. 9.In ambitious strength I did Contend against thy valor.
--Shak. -
To struggle or exert one's self to obtain or retain possession of, or to defend.
You sit above, and see vain men below Contend for what you only can bestow.
--Dryden. -
To strive in debate; to engage in discussion; to dispute; to argue.
The question which our author would contend for.
--Locke.Many things he fiercely contended about were trivial.
--Dr. H. More.Syn: To struggle; fight; combat; vie; strive; oppose; emulate; contest; litigate; dispute; debate.
Wiktionary
n. contention vb. (present participle of contend English)
WordNet
adj. striving or struggling in rivalry or battle; "contending armies"; "two contending parties"
Usage examples of "contending".
When I ventured to suggest that such transport would be preferable to contending with an ox and cart all the way to Cathair Ban, I received merely a growl of disdain from Buinne and a shrug from Iollan, which suggested that neither of them possessed this particular skill.
Latin America and the Caribbean was given over to Romance, with Graustark contending against the Norstro-Huguenot Empire.
He supported his argument by asserting that the writer was clearly more familiar with homelife than the sea and contending that Nausicaa used the story to frame portraits of the great Greek heroines: Calypso, Circe, and Penelope, for instance.
At the meeting of the parliament in January, the king told them, in his speech, that though he was no way engaged in the war which had begun to rage in Europe, except by the good offices he had employed among the contending powers, he could not sit regardless of the present events, or be unconcerned for the consequences of a war undertaken and supported by such a powerful alliance.
The Persians represented Ormuzd and Ahriman by two serpents, contending for the mundane egg.
Ormuzd and Ahriman represented by two serpents contending for the mundane egg, 500-u.
Its vast wings produced by the outburst are twisted into spirals by their rotation and the contending attractions exercised upon them, as the two suns, like battleships in desperate conflict, curve round each other, concentrating their destructive energies.
We find that thesis, then we move to dissolve the interference, contending that the sole count is unpatentable over the disclosures in the thesis.
We intend to dissolve the interference by a motion contending that the interference count is unpatentable over the prior art.
The rising wind was now heard contending with the thunder, as it rushed furiously among the branches above, and brightened the red flame of the torch, which threw a stronger light forward among the woods, and shewed their gloomy recesses to be suitable resorts for the wolves, of which Ugo had formerly spoken.
Certainly, the colonists were not in the situation of castaways abandoned on a sterile islet, constantly contending against a cruel nature for their miserable existence, and incessantly tormented by the longing to return to inhabited countries.
In fact, one matter on which almost all of the contending cerealogists agreed is that the later crop figures were much too complex and elegant to be due to mere human intervention, much less to some ragged and irresponsible hoaxers.
He would leave behind him the rulership of the contending Domains, each striving for something different in the ever-changing world that was modern Darkover.
I'm not contending that colloids are not the fabric of living tissuethey are.
The battle between the contending factions, namely, the father on one side, and the daughter with her lover on the other, was prolonged for a considerable time, but the success was altogether with Annot. Chapeau would have had no chance himself against the hard, dry, common sense of the smith.