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Pertaining to convulsion; convulsive. "Convulsionary struggles." Sir W. Scott.

To enter into or maintain a hostile contest; to struggle; to combat; especially, to strive or contend on equal terms or with success; to match; to equal; -- usually followed by with. Host coped with host, dire was the din of war. Philips. Their generals have not been able to cope with the troops of Athens. Addison.…

reel and rout, The death fires danced at night. Coleridge. -- Death grapple, a grapple or struggle for life. -- Death in life, a condition but little removed from death; a living death. [Poetic] "Lay lingering out a five years' death in life." Tennyson. -- Death knell, a stroke or tolling of a bell, announcing a deat…

To bring to a termination, as a question, controversy, struggle, by giving the victory to one side or party; to render judgment concerning; to determine; to settle. So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it. 1 Kings xx. 40. The quarrel toucheth none but us alone; Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then. Shak.…

e mankind, to what fall Degraded, to what wretched state reserved! Milton. He pride . . . struggled hard against this degrading passion. Macaulay.

To struggle against; to resist. [Obs.] Dispute it [grief] like a man. Shak.

destiny or fate of; to appoint, as by decree or by fate. A man of genius . . . doomed to struggle with difficulties. Macaulay.

or mental, in performing an act or aiming at an object; more or less strenuous endeavor; struggle directed to the accomplishment of an object; as, an effort to scale a wall. We prize the stronger effort of his power. Pope.

To struggle out; -- with out. [Obs.] Bp. Hacket.

, to meet in opposition or with hostile intent; to engage in conflict with; to oppose; to struggle with; as, to encounter a friend in traveling; two armies encounter each other; to encounter obstacles or difficulties, to encounter strong evidence of a truth. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoic…

irs, or induces action; a motive. The cares and excitements of a season of transition and struggle. Talfowrd.

orce shaping events; fortune; esp., opposing circumstances against which it is useless to struggle; as, fate was, or the fates were, against him. A brave man struggling in the storms of fate. Pope. Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams. B. Taylor.…

To act in opposition to anything; to struggle against; to contend; to strive; to make resistance. To fight shy, to avoid meeting fairly or at close quarters; to keep out of reach.

battle; as, a fighting field. Pope. A fighting chance, one dependent upon the issue of a struggle. [Colloq.] -- Fighting crab (Zoöl.), the fiddler crab. -- Fighting fish (Zoöl.), a remarkably pugnacious East Indian fish (Betta pugnax), reared by the Siamese for spectacular fish fights.

pass like a flash. Names which have flashed and thundered as the watch words of unumbered struggles. Talfourd. The object is made to flash upon the eye of the mind. M. Arnold. A thought floashed through me, which I clothed in act. Tennyson.

body one way and the other; to spring, turn, or twist with sudden effort or violence; to struggle, as a horse in mire; to flounder; to throw one's self with a jerk or spasm, often as in displeasure. To flutter and flounce will do nothing but batter and bruise us. Barrow. With his broad fins and forky tail he laves The…

To fling the limbs and body, as in making efforts to move; to struggle, as a horse in the mire, or as a fish on land; to roll, toss, and tumble; to flounce. They have floundered on from blunder to blunder. Sir W. Hamilton.

To obtain or win by strength; to take by violence or struggle; specifically, to capture by assault; to storm, as a fortress.

To strive or struggle against; to withstand. [Obs.] Spenser.

spiration; to labor for breath; to respire convulsively; to pant violently. She gasps and struggles hard for life. Lloyd.