contending

Pluralcontendings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of contend.

   Three candidates are contending for the party's nomination this year.

   Reviewers contending the figures had been inflated demanded a full audit.

   Note

   Beyond the progressive (three candidates are contending), the form often stands before a noun as an adjective: the contending parties, contending claims, contending forces. Which sense of contend it carries depends on what follows. Contending for a prize is rivalry, contending that something is true is argument, and contending with a problem is coping. When it names the activity itself, it shades into the noun meaning 'strife', which alone takes a plural.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act or state of striving, disputing, or competing against others; strife or controversy.

   Years of bitter contending over the inheritance slowly divided the family.

   Their constant contending for influence within the council wore down the older members.

   Similarwrangling, strife, conflict, rivalry, competition

   Oppositecooperation, harmony

   Note

   As a noun it works both ways. Used uncountably, it names ongoing strife, as in years of contending. Used countably, it names separate quarrels. Ralph Erskine's sermon The Lamb in the midst of the Throne speaks of "some contendings in the Church, about the government of his house." Beside contention, the -ing form keeps the sense of a struggle still in motion rather than a settled state.

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