# strife

Pronunciation: say "STRYF" /stɹaɪf/

## Noun

1. Bitter conflict between people or groups, sometimes breaking into violence.
   - Simple: Serious, angry fighting between people or groups.
   - _Political strife divided the nation into two hostile camps._
   - _Decades of religious strife scarred the region long before the treaty._
2. A struggle or contention to come out on top, whether through physical force or mental effort.
   - Simple: A hard struggle to beat others, using strength or clever thinking.
   - _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._
3. Trouble or difficulty of any kind. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Any kind of trouble or problem.
   - _We had a bit of strife with the car on the way over._
   - _He always seems to land himself in some sort of strife._
4. Earnest, determined effort; the act of striving or working hard at something.
   - Simple: Hard work and serious effort 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._

## Noun

5. The thing contended against; the cause or occasion of a contest. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The thing people fight over, or the reason for a contest.

## 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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/strife (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).