contesting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of contest.

   The losing party is contesting the election in several districts.

   Lawyers spent months contesting every clause of the agreement.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After be it builds the progressive (they are contesting the result). On its own it works as a gerund that still takes a direct object (contesting a will takes time). Behind it sit a transitive verb, meaning to dispute, to defend, or to fight a claim by course of law, and an intransitive one meaning simply to contend.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of disputing or challenging something; a dispute or controversy.

   The contesting of the will dragged on for years before the estate was settled.

   Her relentless contesting of every committee decision wore down the other members.

   Similarchallenging, disputing, challenge, dispute

   Oppositeacceptance

   Note

   Unlike the verb form, this noun puts of before its object and takes an article: the contesting of the will, not contesting the will. It can also be made plural, which a gerund cannot. Camillo Boito's The Basilica of S. Mark in Venice (1888) lists "disputes, doubts, and contestings," using the plural to mean separate quarrels rather than the activity.

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