strife
- 1Bitter conflict between people or groups, sometimes breaking into violence.
Political strife divided the nation into two hostile camps.
Decades of religious strife scarred the region long before the treaty.
Similarconflict, discord, contention, altercation, wrangle
Oppositepeace, harmony, accord, concord
Note
Hostility with no prize in view, the sense most readers hear first today. It pairs naturally with "source of." Gandhi calls the interpretation of pledges "a fruitful source of strife all the world over." Wrangle and altercation name a single quarrel. Discord and contention come closer to the broad, uncountable use, as in political or religious strife.
- 2A struggle or contention to come out on top, whether through physical force or mental effort.
The two scholars engaged in intellectual strife over whose theory held up.
Months of strife between the rival firms ended when one finally dominated the market.
Similarrivalry, contention, struggle, competition, conflict
Oppositecooperation, harmony, accord
Note
Here the contest has a goal, which is to come out on top, and that separates it from bitter conflict. It can be counted. The King James Bible of 1611 warns against "strifes of words," rivalries fought out in argument rather than by force. Shakespeare's "parents' strife" in Romeo and Juliet is the feud of two houses, each refusing to yield to the other.
- 3Trouble or difficulty of any kind.
We had a bit of strife with the car on the way over.
He always seems to land himself in some sort of strife.
Similartrouble, bother, hassle, difficulty, grief
- 4Earnest, determined effort; the act of striving or working hard at something.
Her success was built on the daily strife of practice and study.
The farm was carved out of the forest by years of patient strife with ax and plow.
Similartoil, effort, labor, exertion, endeavor
Oppositeidleness, ease, leisure
Note
The meaning closest to the word's roots: Middle English strif came from Old French estrif, a noun built on the verb estriver. That verb goes back to Frankish, the same source as strive. Here the effort is the point and no opponent is needed, so surround it with words of work, such as practice, study or plowing, or readers will hear bitter conflict instead.
Less common meaning
- 5The thing contended against; the cause or occasion of a contest.
He ſpide lamenting her unlucky ſtrife,
1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie QueeneNote
Spenser's line in The Faerie Queene (1590), "lamenting her unlucky strife," uses the word for what a struggle is about or against, not the struggle itself. It means the cause, the burden or the thing fought over. The sense is obsolete, so read it this way only in older verse. In modern prose the same idea calls for bone of contention or point at issue.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English strif, from Old French estrif, a noun formed from the verb estriver, which came from Frankish *strīban (compare Dutch strijven). It is related to strive.