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Strife; contention. [Obs.] Shak.

Exciting contention; contentious. [Obs.] "It did bateful question frame. " Sidney.

A struggle; a contest; as, the battle of life. The whole intellectual battle that had at its center the best poem of the best poet of that day. H. Morley.

Insignificant; contemptible. [Obs.]

To exist actually, or in the world of fact; to have ex To be contents his natural desire. Pope. To be, or not to be: that is the question. Shak.

To take by the beard; to seize, pluck, or pull the beard of (a man), in anger or contempt.

To overcome in a battle, contest, strife, race, game, etc.; to vanquish or conquer; to surpass. He beat them in a bloody battle. Prescott. For loveliness, it would be hard to beat that. M. Arnold.

One who is dependent upon others for support; -- a contemptuous or sarcastic use.

like, a beggar; suitable for a beggar; extremely indigent; poverty-stricken; mean; poor; contemptible. "A bankrupt, beggarly fellow." South. "A beggarly fellowship." Swift. "Beggarly elements." Gal. iv. 9.

A persuasion of the truths of religion; faith. No man can attain [to] belief by the bare contemplation of heaven and earth. Hooker.

To make little or less in a moral sense; to speak of in a depreciatory or contemptuous way. T. Jefferson.

Inclined to war or contention; warlike; pugnacious. Arnold was, in fact, in a bellicose vein. W. Irving.

Hence: A leader. [Contemptuous] Swift.

A process issued by a presiding judge or by a court against a person guilty of some contempt, or indicted for some crime; -- so called in distinction from a justice's warrant.

That which is laid, staked, or pledged, as between two parties, upon the event of a contest or any contingent issue; the act of giving such a pledge; a wager. "Having made his bets." Goldsmith.

A name of contempt given to a man who interferes with the duties of women in a household, or who occupies himself with womanish matters.

To contend in petulant altercation; to wrangle. Petty things about which men cark and bicker. Barrow.

Contention. [Obs.] Spenser.

dly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion. To doubt, where bigots had been content to wonder and believe. Macaulay.

Hunting for, or taking, birds' nests or their contents.