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A game, match, etc., open only to losers in early stages of contests.

A meeting of two persons or bodies; a collision; especially, a meetingg in opposition or contest; a combat, action, or engagement. The justling chiefs in rude rencounter join. Granville.

The time during which prize fighters or boxers are in actual contest without an intermission, as prescribed by their rules; a bout.

rd or the fifth, when there is a tie between the players; as, to play the rubber; also, a contest determined by the winning of two out of three games; as, to play a rubber of whist. Beaconsfield. "A rubber of cribbage." Dickens.

To contend in a race; hence, to enter into a contest; to become a candidate; as, to run for Congress. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize So run, that ye may obtain. 1 Cor. ix. 24.

Attended with much bloodshed; bloody; murderous; as, a sanguinary war, contest, or battle. We may not propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences. Bacon.

A slight contest; a skirmish. See Skirmish. [Obs.] Such cruel game my scarmoges disarms. Spenser.

A fighting with a shadow; a mock contest; an imaginary or futile combat. [Written also scimachy.] Cowley.

The number of points gained by the contestants, or either of them, in any game, as in cards or cricket.

A greedy and unceremonious contestant.

practiced players. -- Scrub race, a race between scrubs, or between untrained animals or contestants.

Hence, a confused contest; a tumultuous struggle for superiority; a fight. The dog leaps upon the serpent, and tears it to pieces; but in the scuffle the cradle happened to be overturned. L'Estrange.

A contest in boxing, in an argument, or the like. [Colloq.] Halliwell.

That which settles or finishes; hence, a blow, etc., which settles or decides a contest. [Colloq.]

Fierce; ardent; fiery; violent; impetuous. "In sharp contest of battle." Milton. A sharp assault already is begun. Dryden.

A shooting with great precision and effect; hence, a keen contest of wit or argument.

A slight contest. They never meet but there's a skirmish of wit. Shak.

To contest in words; to wrangle. [Colloq.]

k, a book with exercises for teaching children to spell; a speller. -- Spelling match, a contest of skill in spelling words, between two or more persons.

lour, to be used in leavening a larger quantity. -- To throw up the sponge, to give up a contest; to acknowledge defeat; -- from a custom of the prize ring, the person employed to sponge a pugilist between rounds throwing his sponge in the air in token of defeat. [Cant or Slang] "He was too brave a man to throw up the…