conflicting

1. 1
   adjective

   Opposed to one another; contradictory, so that the claims or interests involved cannot all be true or met at once.

   The committee received conflicting reports about the project's progress.

   Her conflicting feelings about the move kept her awake at night.

   Similarcontradictory, inconsistent, incompatible, contrary, clashing

   Oppositeconsistent, compatible, harmonious, congruent

   Note

   Here nothing is fighting, and the clash is logical: conflicting evidence, conflicting reports and conflicting rumors are things that cannot all be true at once. Dickens shows the pattern in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), where conflicting rumors have Sally Brass turning into a female sailor or enlisting as a private. The adjective grades freely, so one account can be more conflicting than another.

2. 2
   adjective

   Engaged in fighting or contention with one another; locked in active opposition.

   The conflicting factions had fought for decades over the disputed border.

   Diplomats struggled to bring the conflicting parties to the negotiating table.

   Similarwarring, opposing, rival, hostile

   Oppositeallied, friendly, peaceful

   Note

   Factions and warring parties are the obvious subjects, but the word stretches to anything whose paths physically collide. Writing in 2020 about Network Rail's plans for a busy Brighton Main Line station, Andrew Roden calls trains that get in one another's way conflicting movements. The clash there is one of contact, not of argument. Where the opposition lies in claims rather than collision, the "contradictory" meaning takes over.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of conflict.

   The new evidence kept conflicting with the original testimony.

   His outside duties were conflicting with his family commitments.

   Note

   The verb form shares its spelling with both adjectives but behaves differently. It follows be or an aspectual verb and takes with rather than a direct object, because conflict as a verb is intransitive. It also carries the scheduling sense: a meeting conflicting with an appointment overlaps it rather than disagreeing with it. As a gerund, it names the act itself.

   Two of her classes are conflicting with each other this term.

   Conflicting with his manager over every decision wore him down.

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