conflicts

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of conflict.

   Negotiators worked to resolve the longstanding territorial conflicts between the two nations.

   The report documented dozens of conflicts of interest among the board members.

   Note

   The plural belongs only to the countable uses of the noun: separate clashes between groups, or separate incompatibilities, such as conflicts of interest. When conflict means the abstract state of strife, it stays singular and takes no plural. In conflicts of interest the plural falls on conflicts, never on interest. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb, so the surrounding words decide which is meant.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of conflict.

   The defendant's testimony conflicts with the physical evidence found at the scene.

   This proposed schedule conflicts with the deadlines already agreed upon last month.

   Note

   A verb that never takes a direct object: one thing conflicts with another. The with-phrase names what it clashes against, as when testimony conflicts with evidence or one account conflicts with another. The same construction covers scheduling, where a meeting that conflicts with another simply overlaps it in time. Leaving out with, as in "the plan conflicts the deadline," is an error.

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