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which the testimony of the person certifying is the only proper criterion of the point in dispute; as, when the issue is whether a person was absent in the army, this is tried by the certificate of the proper officer in writing, under his seal. Blackstone.

To treat or dispute about a purchase; to bargain; to haggle or higgle; to negotiate. To chaffer for preferments with his gold. Dryden.

A bargain or contract; an agreement about a matter in dispute, such as a debt; a business compact.

ng for another. We go on chopping and changing our friends. L'Estrange. To chop logic, to dispute with an affected use of logical terms; to argue sophistically.

That which ends a dispute or controversy; a decisive argument.

One who makes complaint. Eager complainants of the dispute. Collier.

A mutual agreement to refer matters in dispute to the decision of arbitrators. [Obs.] Burrill.

A coming or bringing together, as in a public meeting, in a dispute, in the act of comparing, or in sexual intercourse. [R.] Jer. Taylor.

A collection of maritime laws of disputed origin, supposed to have been first published at Barcelona early in the 14th century. It has formed the basis of most of the subsequent collections of maritime laws. Kent. Bouvier.

To strive in opposition; to contest; to dispute; to vie; to quarrel; to fight. For never two such kingdoms did content 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.…

Strife in words; controversy; altercation quarrel; dispute; as, a bone of contention. Contentions and strivings about the law. Titus iii. 9.

Fond of contention; given to angry debate; provoking dispute or contention; quarrelsome. Despotic and contentious temper. Macaulay.

To make a subject of dispute, contention, litigation, or emulation; to contend for; to call in question; to controvert; to oppose; to dispute. The people . . . contested not what was done. Locke. Few philosophical aphorisms have been more frequenty repeated, few more contested than this. J. D. Morell.…

The act of contesting; emulation; rivalry; strife; dispute. "Loverlike contestation." Milton. After years spent in domestic, unsociable contestations, she found means to withdraw. Clarendon.

To dispute; to controvert. [Obs.] "Controversed causes." Hooker.

Contention; dispute; debate; discussion; agitation of contrary opinions. This left no room for controversy about the title. Locke. A dispute is commonly oral, and a controversy in writing. Johnson.

To make matter of controversy; to dispute or oppose by reasoning; to contend against in words or writings; to contest; to debate. Some controverted points had decided according to the sense of the best jurists. Macaulay.

lieve on slight evidence. That implict credulity is the mark of a feeble mind will not be disputed. Sir W. Hamilton.

d. Hale. It is a kind of taking God's name in vain to debase religion with such frivolous disputes. Hooker. And to debase the sons, exalts the sires. Pope.

able to be debated; disputable; subject to controversy or contention; open to question or dispute; as, a debatable question. The Debatable Land or Ground, a tract of land between the Esk and the Sark, claimed by both England and Scotland; the Batable Ground.