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To contend for in words or arguments; to strive to maintain by reasoning; to dispute; to contest; to discuss; to argue for and against. A wise council . . . that did debate this business. Shak. Debate thy cause with thy neighbor himself. Prov. xxv. 9.

Full of contention; contentious; quarrelsome. [Obs.] Spenser.

With contention. [Obs.]

In the modern Olympic Games, a composite contest consisting of a 100-meter run, a broad jump, putting the shot, a running high-jump, a 400-meter run, throwing the discus, a 100-meter hurdle race, pole vaulting, throwing the javelin, and a 1500-meter run.

Contest for mastery; contention; strife. [R.] Arnway.

Having the power or quality of deciding a question or controversy; putting an end to contest or controversy; final; conclusive. "A decisive, irrevocable doom." Bates. "Decisive campaign." Macaulay. "Decisive proof." Hallam.

ndertake or comply with; reject; to shun; to avoid; as, to decline an offer; to decline a contest; he declined any participation with them. Could I Decline this dreadful hour Massinger.

in regard to (the suit, or the wrong charged); to oppose or resist, as a claim at law; to contest, as a suit. Burrill.

A state of opposition; willingness to flight; disposition to resist; contempt of opposition. He breathed defiance to my ears. Shak.

arlborough] was so miserably ignorant, that his deficiencies made him the ridicule of his contemporaries. Buckle. Deficiency of a curve (Geom.), the amount by which the number of double points on a curve is short of the maximum for curves of the same degree.

One who dares and defies; a contemner; as, a defier of the laws.

to call out to combat; to challenge; to dare; to brave; to set at defiance; to treat with contempt; as, to defy an enemy; to defy the power of a magistrate; to defy the arguments of an opponent; to defy public opinion. I once again Defy thee to the trial of mortal fight. Milton. I defy the enemies of our constitution t…

to lower the physical, moral, or intellectual character of; to debase; to bring shame or contempt upon; to disgrace; as, vice degrades a man. O miserable mankind, to what fall Degraded, to what wretched state reserved! Milton. He pride . . . struggled hard against this degrading passion. Macaulay.

the bursting open of follicles, as in the ovaries of animals, for the expulsion of their contents.

e Deity, God, the Supreme Being. This great poet and philosopher [Simonides], the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth. Addison.

Low estimation; disesteem; contempt. [Obs.]

of simple elements which an abstract conception or notion includes; the comprehension or content.

To laugh at with contempt; to laugh to scorn; to turn to ridicule or make sport of; to mock; to scoff at. And the Pharisees, also, . . . derided him. Luke xvi. 14. Sport that wrinkled Care derides. And Laughter holding both his sides. Milton.

One who derides, or laughs at, another in contempt; a mocker; a scoffer.

The act of deriding, or the state of being derided; mockery; scornful or contemptuous treatment which holds one up to ridicule. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Ps. ii. 4. Saderision called. Milton.