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A struggling; a contention. [Obs.] Colluctation with old hags and hobgoblins. Dr. H. More.

To struggle or contend, as with an opposing force; to fight. To combat with a blind man I disdain. Milton. After the fall of the republic, the Romans combated only for the choice of masters. Gibbon.

The commonalty; the common people. [Obs.] Chaucer. In this struggle -- to use the technical words of the time -- of the "commune", the general mass of the inhabitants, against the "prudhommes" or "wiser" few. J. R. Green.

A strife for the mastery; hostile contest; battle; struggle; fighting.

The act of gaining or regaining by successful strugle; as, the conquest of liberty or peace. The Conquest (Eng. Hist.), the subjugation of England by William of Normandy in 1066.

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.

A violent effort or struggle to obtain, or to resist, something; contest; strife. I would my arcontenion. Shak.

To strive earnestly to hold or maintain; to struggle to defend; as, the troops contested every inch of ground.

Contrary; opposed; antagonistic; inconsistent; contradictory. [R.] The struggles of contrariant factions. Coleridge.

ff of honor for mine age, But not a scepter to control the world. Shak. I feel my virtue struggling in my soul: But stronger passion does its power control. Dryden.

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.…

eel 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 death…

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.…

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.

A struggling out of any difficulty. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.