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Contest   Listen
verb
Contest  v. t.  (past & past part. contested; pres. part. contesting)  
1.
To make a subject of dispute, contention, litigation, or emulation; to contend for; to call in question; to controvert; to oppose; to dispute. "The people... contested not what was done." "Few philosophical aphorisms have been more frequenty repeated, few more contested than this."
2.
To strive earnestly to hold or maintain; to struggle to defend; as, the troops contested every inch of ground.
3.
(Law) To make a subject of litigation; to defend, as a suit; to dispute or resist; as a claim, by course of law; to controvert.
To contest an election. (Polit.)
(a)
To strive to be elected.
(b)
To dispute the declared result of an election.
Synonyms: To dispute; controvert; debate; litigate; oppose; argue; contend.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contest" Quotes from Famous Books



... unbeknown to us, the work of purifying and regenerating the soil and atmosphere. Let us now examine our enemies, for they are numerous. Everywhere frequent—in the air, in the earth, in the water—they only await an occasion to introduce themselves into our body in order to engage in a contest for existence with the cells that make up our tissues; and, often victorious, they cause death with fearful rapidity. When we have named charbon, septicaemia, diphtheria, typhoid fever, pork measles, etc., we shall have indicated the serious affections that microbes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... once offered themselves, and there was an earnest contest between them for the dangerous post. Dr. Hodges listened for a minute or two, and then decided upon the elder of the two sisters—a quiet, resolute-looking girl with ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... ratio. On its left the Seventh and the Tenth were up, pouring in musketry, and receiving it in a fashion hardly less sanguinary. No one present had ever seen, or ever afterward saw, such another close and deadly contest. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... before. And with good reason, for Moses had been educated as a priest in Egypt, and he knew that Egyptian "wise men" could do as well, and even better, if it came to a magical competition before Pharaoh. And Moses had evidently no relish for a contest in the presence of his countrymen as to the relative quality of his magic. Therefore, he objected once more on another ground: "I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." This continued ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... to hand since I wrote the paper, and which I suppose to have come from the President himself, show a little hesitation in the purposes of his party; and in that state of mind, a bolt shot critically may decide the contest, by its effect on the less bold. The olive-branch held out to them at this moment may be accepted, and the constitution thus saved at a moderate sacrifice. I say nothing of the paper, which will explain itself. The following ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... touches were put to the training. Included in the programme were the final stages of the Army Rifle Association competition, in which No. 6 Platoon were defeated by a Platoon of the 8th Durham Light Infantry in the final of the Brigade contest. The officers were taken up to certain areas near Peronne, where the Battalion might have to deliver counter-attacks in the event of a German success. About the middle of March rumours of the impending ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown

... GOWN OF BREAD-STREET WARD.—It is supposed that there will be a hard contest for the Aldermanic Gown of Bread street, vacant by the resignation of Alderman Lainson, who on Thursday last addressed a letter to the Lord Mayor, announcing his determination to retire, in consequence of ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... here, there, backward and forward, alert, accurate, bubbling with energy . . . Once, a mad rollicking impulse seized and urged him to vault the net and take her in his arms and hold her still for a moment. But he knew. She was using him as an athlete uses a trainer before a real contest. ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... natural outcome of a literary atmosphere and inherited culture; that is, her mind was passively rather than actively engaged in such directions, until later. At the normal school she led a class which has had a proud intellectual record as teachers and workers. She was the easy victor in every contest; with an inclusive grasp, an incisive analysis, instant generalization, a very tenacious and ready memory, and unusual talent for every effort of study, she took and held the first place as a matter of course until she graduated, when she gave the valedictory ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... The contest was almost equal. They were both of powerful physique and equally courageous and for some minutes the battle raged ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... them into my pocket. When I thought of them again Joe had gone away and I did not know his address. I came over and searched the cupboard unsuccessfully. But it was not a matter of great importance at that time if the stock was mislaid, since there was no one to contest my ownership of it. It was only after Mr. Merrick accused me of robbing my old friends and ordered my payments stopped that I realized it was important to me to prove my ownership. That is why I came ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... was that fossil remains were lusus naturae—freaks of nature—and in 1517 Fracastor was violently attacked because he thought them something more. No less a man than Bernard Palissy followed up the contest, on the right side, in France, but it required 150 years to carry the day fairly against this single preposterous theory. The champion who dealt it the deadly blow was Scilla, and his weapons were facts obtained ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... of truce; demanding the surrender of Detroit. Adroitly embodied in his dispatch were the following words: 'You must be aware that the numerous bodies of Indians who have attached themselves to my troops will be beyond my control the moment the contest commences.' Hull replied that he was prepared to meet any force at Brock's command; whereupon the British batteries at Sandwich opened fire, which continued until evening. Under cover of darkness Colonel ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond

... desirable accountant for a desk, than a whole year's exercise otherwise. In the one case, the pupil starts to the race without preparation, and with all his natural impediments clinging to him, which he has to disentangle and throw off one by one during the fatigues and turmoil of the contest; while the other, on the contrary, delays his start till he has deliberately searched them out and cast them aside, and thus prepared himself for the course. He then starts vigorous and light, to ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... crossed a conical eminence, at no great distance from the Niagara highway. The summit of this hill was crowned with the cannon of the British, and in the flat beneath was the remnant of Scott's gallant brigade, which for a long time had held an unequal contest with distinguished bravery. A new line was interposed, and one column of the Americans directed to charge up the hill, parallel to the road. This column took the English in flank, and, bayoneting their artillerists, gained possession of the cannon. They were immediately joined by their ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... presented themselves at the regular session of Congress in December, and found their seats occupied by the brace of Democrats whom the people of Mississippi had elected to stay at home, and after a most severe and memorable contest, the new members presented themselves for admission at the bar of the House, which decided readily that Claiborne and Gholson were not entitled to their places, but instead of admitting Prentiss and Word, by Mr. Polk's casting vote declared the seats vacant, and referred the whole subject back ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... who made the fold of the Badb [Note: The Badb (scald-crow) was a war-goddess. This is an expressive term for the piled-up bodies of the slain.] of the men of the earth, Cuchulainn Mac Sualtaim, took his battle-array of battle and contest and strife. This was his battle-array of battle and contest and strife: he put on twenty-seven skin tunics, waxed, like board, equally thick, which used to be under strings and chains and thongs, against his white skin, that he might not lose his mind nor ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown

... this battle are established beyond dispute. In the first day's fighting a part of Lee's army defeated a part of Meade's. Intending to continue the contest on that field, a commander not smitten by idiocy would desire to concentrate and push the advantage gained by previous success and its resultant morale. But, instead of attacking at dawn, Lee's attack was postponed until afternoon of the following day, in consequence ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... will, in more respects than one, probably find themselves disappointed. The two nations were not rivals in arms, but in the arts and sciences, at the time these letters were written, and committed to the press; consequently, they have no relation whatever to the present contest. Nevertheless, as they refer to subjects which manifest the indefatigable activity of the French in the accomplishment of any grand object, such parts may, perhaps, furnish hints that may not be altogether unimportant at this ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... disputing with the legislature about his salary. But, as he found it impossible to get a fixed sum, he finally obtained the king's leave to accept whatever the legislature chose to give him. And thus the people triumphed, after this long contest for the privilege of expending their own money as they ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... conduct of some colonies, from the beginning of this contest, had given reason to suspect it was their settled policy to keep in the rear of the confederacy, that their particular prospect might be better, even ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... origin one with it and bound up in it, without its true self and originating life, cannot think to any real purpose— nor ever would to all eternity. When man joins with God, then is all impotence and discord cast out. Until then, there can be but jar; God is in contest with the gates of hell that open in the man, and can but hold his own; when the man joins him, then is Satan foiled. For then first nature receives her necessity: no such necessity has she as this law of all laws—that ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... at last the contest rose, From words they almost came to blows: When luckily came by a third; To him the question they referred: And begged he'd tell them, if he knew, Whether the ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... marching a force from Cabul to Candahar. His reply was that the tribes might be hostile, but that if no long halts were made by the way he would have no objections to such a march. In this he showed his astuteness, since the defeat of Ayoub Khan by a British army would obviously save him a contest. So willing to be of service on this matter was he that when the march was decided on he sent influential persons of his party in advance to arrange with the local maliks to have supplies collected for the column. The arrangements ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... most bitter feelings of hostility. They fired upon them as they advanced, and then rushing from behind their covers, attacked them with their bayonets, and those who had none, with the butt end of their muskets. This contest was maintained, hand to hand, for nearly half an hour. The Greens made a manful resistance, but were finally obliged to give way before the dreadful fury of their assailants, with the loss of thirty killed upon the spot where they first entered. Major Watson was wounded ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... difficult of access, and as vain and ambitious as he was haughty and contemptuous. Those who professed to have witnessed the scene told of a trial of power between this man—the Black Snake, as he was called—and a renowned medicine-man of a neighboring tribe. The contest, from what the Indians said, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... maintained, that their champions had clearly the better of the day, that their adversaries were blind and obstinate heretics; that nothing but the most extreme depravity of heart could induce men to contest such self-evident principles; and that the severest punishments were due to their perverse wickedness. So pleased were they with their superiority in this favorite point, that they soon after renewed the dispute at Oxford; and, to show that they ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... the priest's estimation been full of peril; but then the prize to be won was very great! From the first he had liked the young man, and had not doubted,—did not now doubt,—but that if once married he would do justice to his wife. Even though Kate should fail and should come out of the contest with a scorched heart,—and that he had thought more than probable,—still the prize was very high and the girl he thought was one who could survive such a blow. Latterly, in that respect he had changed his opinion. Kate had shewn herself to be capable of ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... in spite of all this parade of sea-coast, Bonaparte has neither ships nor sailors: but this is a mistake. He has not ships and sailors to contest the empire of the seas with Great Britain, but there remains quite sufficient of the navies of France, Spain, Holland, and Denmark, for these short excursions and invasions. Do you think, too, that Bonaparte does ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... The contest was keen and animated. The riflemen of Virginia poured volley after volley against the artillerists, while the latter hurled their solid balls against the massive masonry. At first they fired low, battering in doors, splintering wood-work, unhinging shutters, and ploughing ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... we infer that by Brahman we have here to understand the enjoying soul which is the ruler of Prakriti, not any other being. For no other being is connected with work; work, whether meritorious or the contrary, belongs to the individual soul only. Nor must you contest this conclusion on the ground that 'work' is here to be explained as meaning the object of activity, so that the sense of the clause would be 'he of whom this entire world, as presented by perception and the other ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... compassionate by familiarity with sorrow, more placable by contest, purer by temptation, and more enduring by distress.[28] It is owing to the constant presence of this thought, to his sensibility to the refining influence of sorrow, that Wordsworth is the only poet who will bear reading in times ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... differences with regard to political economy or administrative policy, they would act cordially and faithfully in unison to oppose the extension of slavery, and be known as Republicans until the contest was terminated. This name was assumed in other ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... Lesbos, lived chiefly at the court of Periander, Corinth; returning in a ship from a musical contest in Sicily laden with prizes, the sailors plotted to kill him, when he begged permission to play one strain on his lute, which being conceded, dolphins crowded round the ship, whereupon he leapt over the bulwarks, was received on the back of one of them, and carried to Corinth, arriving ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself—that comes too late—a crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... to torpedo the other, but both were unsuccessful, and the duel proved a contest in hard pounding at long range. The Sydney's speed during the fighting was twenty-six knots, and the Emden's twenty-four knots. The British ship's superiority of two knots enabled her to choose the range at which the battle should be fought and ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... Hall of Lady Managers. I wuz glad it wuz where wimmen could keep an eye on 'em and keep 'em from bein' run on. In one corner on't is two stalls, jest as they have horse stalls in barns, but these stalls are one hundred and eighty feet long and forty feet wide. There wuz most ninety entries for the contest. If they make a speed of twenty milds an hour they git a prize of one hundred thousand. I would like to know what Sister Bobbett would ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... awful and eventful contest. By unanimity and dispatch in our councils, and by vigour in our operations, we may teach the enemy this lesson, that a country defended by free men, enthusiastically devoted to the cause of their king and constitution, can ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... uncertain. Against that you have your certain uncontested possession, the peculiar character and antecedents of this 'Lige Curtis, which would make his evidence untrustworthy and even make it difficult for them to establish his identity. I am told that his failure to contest your appropriation of his property is explained by the fact of his being absent from the country most of the time; but again, this would not account for their silence until within the last six months, unless they have been waiting for further evidence to establish it. ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... them, but because he wanted to think what his mother and "little sister" would say, but his misery was as nothing to that of the two who sat up there amid the ranks of the blue and white, holding each other's hands with a despairing grip. To Bud all of the rest of the contest was a horrid nightmare; he hardly knew when the three companies were marched back to receive the judges' decision. The applause that greeted company "B" when the blue ribbons were pinned on the members' coats meant nothing to his ears. He had disgraced ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... cared nothing for that, being pretty well protected by oilskins, sou'-westers, and sea-boots. Straining and striving, sometimes gaining an inch or two, sometimes a yard or so, while the smack plunged and kicked, the contest seemed like a doubtful one between vis inertiae and the human will. Two hours and a half it lasted, until the great trawl-beam came to the surface, and was got up on the vessel's side, after which these indomitable men proceeded to claw up the huge ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... have been anticipated by the country in its unqualified condemnation. What is now to be regarded as the judgment of the American people on this whole subject I have no accurate means of determining but by appealing to their more immediate representatives. The late contest, which terminated in the election of General Harrison to the Presidency, was decided on principles well known and openly declared, and while the subtreasury received in the result the most decided condemnation, yet no other scheme of finance seemed to have been concurred in. To ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... growing up beneath and penetrated by the genuine influences of American society; living from infancy to manhood and age amidst our expanding, but not luxurious civilization; partaking in our great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed nature and uncivilized man, our agony of glory, the war of Independence, our great victory of peace, the formation of the Union, and the establishment of the Constitution,—he is all, all our own! ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... or firing at a mark, or rowing, or running a race, they should be on fair ground with them.—Our fellows offered to institute this game with them; that there should be a strong canvass bag, with two pieces of cord four feet long; and the contest should be, for one man to put the other in the bag, with the liberty of first tying his hands, or his feet, or both if he chose. Here would be a contest of strength and hardihood, but not of cunning or legerdemain. But the Frenchmen all united in saying, "No! No! No! It is not the fashion in ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... battle with somebody else's kite up in the air. You have to try and so manoeuvre your kite that its thread crosses that of your opponent, who may be stationed quite a long way off and out of sight. He on his part will try and avoid you and get the upper hand himself. In the hands of expert flyers the contest is most exciting. Crowds will gather and watch the result with intense interest. The kites dodge, and rush upwards, and dive downwards, as if they were alive, and the fight often goes on for a long time. The thread is doctored with glass which ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... local option contest a prominent business man said to me: "I do not use liquor but I am in doubt about how I should vote on the question." When I asked; "What's your trouble?" he answered: "We have six saloons in this little city and the license fee is one thousand dollars; how are we to run the city without ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... them, one and all, The banners of the Gaul In the thickest of the contest, round the resolute Montcalm; The well-attended Wolfe, Emerging from the gulf Of the battle's fiery furnace, like the ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster

... fleetness of an antelope, had ran by the land-path from the spot of the contest, and reached home nearly as quick as the boat containing her father and Captain Ratlin had done, and now, as she saw her hated white rival leaning upon his arm, so pale, so confiding, and he addressing her with such tender assurance, a fresh wound to her already rankled and goaded feelings ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... Round World does not want you to hurry over this contest, but to take plenty of time and do the work carefully. It will be a pleasant occupation for ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 44, September 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... was a contest between Northern and Southern pioneers whether California should come in the Union a free or a slave State. Broderick, a Democrat from the city of New York, represented the Northern sentiment, and was supported by the Whigs of the State. Common ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower

... rescued him from their power. At Agincourt, eighteen French gentlemen entered into an agreement to direct all their attacks against King Henry, most probably with a view of acquiring a fortune by his capture; hence the contest was the hottest about his person. After the battle of Nanci, and the death of the Duke of Burgundy, by the sword of Charles de Beaumont, the latter is said to have died of regret, when he became aware whom it ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various

... us that, once upon a time, the three goddesses, Venus, Juno, and Minerva, had a contest as to which was the most beautiful, and left the decision to Paris, then a shepherd on Mount Ida, though really the son of King Priam of Troy. The princely shepherd decided in favor of Venus, who had promised him in reward the love of the most beautiful of living women, the Spartan Helen, daughter ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... of this design is incontestable. The ankh, the lotus blossom in the hand, the winged disk, are purely Egyptian forms; the Isis Athor with Horus in her lap speaks for itself; and the worshipper in front of Isis has an unmistakably Egyptian head dress. But the contest with the winged griffin is more Assyrian than Egyptian; the seat whereon Isis sits recalls a well-known Assyrian type;[776] one of the altars has a distinctly Assyrian character, while the band of musicians, the Astarte figures standing in their shrines, and the pillars which support, and frame ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... try if we can do a little better;" and he actually carried them back to the charge. He was, indeed, upon that day, everywhere, and the soul of everything; nor could less than his personal endeavors have supported the spirits of the men through a contest so long, so desperate, and so unequal. At his last attack, Buonaparte brought up 15,000 of his Guard, who had never drawn trigger during the day. It was upon their failure ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... unto thee good speed for thy soul, and the skill of wisdom. Do thou bid that these nails be set upon the bridle, as a bit 1175 for the horse of the most noble among castle-ruling kings. It shall become famed to many throughout the world when he shall overcome each of his enemies thereby in the contest, as with brave hearts and brandished swords they seek the battle on either 1180 side, and strive for the mastery there, foe against foe. He shall have good speed in war, victory in battle, and peace everywhere, the calm following ...
— The Elene of Cynewulf • Cynewulf

... Titan." Not a single appeal to facile sentiment is in it. It proceeds from beginning to end in a forthright, uncompromising, confident manner. It is an almost purely objective account, as devoid of cheap heroics as a death certificate, of a strong man's contest with incontestable powers without and no less incontestable powers within. There is nothing of the conventional outlaw about him; he does not wear a red sash and bellow for liberty; fate wrings from him no melodramatic defiances. In the midst of the battle he views ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... fastened on the scene with a sort of fascinated horror. Stella knew well the danger of the bout. In the doorway of the cabin Lieutenant Barrows leaned indifferently, smoking a cigarette, and watching the uneven contest with slight interest in its outcome, and with no regard whatever for the thing which all gentlemen hold sacred, ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... firm, but quiet opposition, will be the most likely to succeed. Whatever turn this crisis takes, a revolution in their constitution seems inevitable, unless foreign war supervene, to suspend the present contest. And a foreign war they will avoid, if possible, from an inability to get money. The loan of one hundred and twenty millions, of the present year, is filled up by such subscriptions as may be relied on. But that of eighty millions, proposed for the next year, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... these distinctions were yet more marked, and the feuds of Orange and Ribbon-man, Scotch and Irish, Englishman and French Acadian, had not then given way before the softening and concealing hand of 'Time, the great leveler;' and so some twenty years ago, during a close contest between the then rising liberal party and the conservatives, a riot took place near the polling-booth in the Highland Scotch settlement of Belfast. All the combined strength of both parties was present; the canvassing ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... crook, Hammer, had finally been nabbed, still with the formula for the bendable glass in his possession. Tom was glad to get this back, even though patent proceedings were under way, for anyone holding the papers could have instituted a costly legal contest. ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton

... Alps to France. The Papacy, in the center, manipulated these two hostile foreign forces with some advantage to itself, but with ever-deepening disaster for the race. As in the days of Guelf and Ghibelline, so now again the nation was bisected. The contest between French and Spanish factions became cruel. Personal interests were substituted for principles; cross-combinations perplexed the real issues of dispute; while one sole fact emerged into distinctness—that, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... the only competitors were Juno, Venus, and Minerva, the other goddesses having withdrawn their claims. The contest then became more bitter, and at last Jupiter was called upon to act as judge in the dispute. This delicate task the king of heaven declined to undertake. He knew that whatever way he might decide, he would be sure to offend two of the three goddesses, and thereby destroy the peace ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke

... pitting his strength against a rival demigod who has done injury to a relative or patron of his own, or even by tricks outwitting the mischievous akua. Finally, he remains on earth only when, by transgressing some kupua custom or in contest with a superior kupua, he is turned into stone, many rock formations about the islands being thus explained and consequently worshiped as dwelling places of gods. Otherwise he is deified in the heavens, or goes to dwell in the underworld with the gods, from whence he may still direct ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous

... and little curlie Godfrey—that's the eldest, the come o' will, as I may say —he's on board an excise yacht—I hae a cousin at the board of excise—that's 'Commissioner Bertram; he got his commissionership in the great contest for the county, that ye must have heard of, for it was appealed to the House of Commons—now I should have voted there for the Laird of Balruddery; but ye see my father was a Jacobite, and out with Kenmore, so he never took the oaths; ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... has subdued kingdoms, obtained promises, quenched the violence of fire, and escaped the edge of the sword. By the prayer of faith the weak have become strong and turned to flight the armies of the aliens. The weak child of God by prayer develops into strong manhood. When engaged in a severe contest with the enemy of your soul the prayer of faith draws upon the strength of heaven and thus you become stronger in God. In a time of heavy and sore trials by looking upward unto God in confidence we conquer. For this reason the trial of our faith is more precious than gold. "What things soever ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... the other waltzers had stopped, as much for the purpose of observing these two as for giving them more space, while the wearied musicians scraped away as if it were a contest who should move the faster, ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... lib. 8. (A horse with narrow flanks looks more comely; It also moves faster. An athlete whose muscles have been developed by training presents a handsome appearance; he is also better prepared for the contest. Attractive appearance is invariably associated with efficient functioning. Yet it takes no outstanding powers of judgement to wake ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... question mainly of money and persistence. Our armies can and will conquer the rebellion, if we can and will supply the sinews of war. Our success is much more a financial than a military question. As regards the result, the Secretary of the Treasury holds now the most important post in this contest: he is the generalissimo; and as he is right on this question, and the fate of the Union is involved, I deem it my duty to give him my ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... "Long hung the contest doubtful; for though a heavy shower of rain, sent by the 'cloud-compelling Jove,' in some measure cooled their ardor, as doth a bucket of water thrown on a group of fighting mastiffs, yet did they ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... pardonable pride in his own regiment, and have accorded "honor to whom honor was due." Despite all that maybe alleged to the contrary, ours was not a "War of the Roses," of brother against brother, struggling for supremacy; but partook more of the nature of the inhuman contest in the Netherlands, waged by the unscrupulous and crafty Duke of Alva at the instance Philip (the Good!), or rather like that in which the rich and fruitful Province of the Palatine was subjected to fire and rapine under the mailed hand of that ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... Issus," he replied, "in which black men wash the sins from their souls in the blood of men from the outer world. If, perchance, the black is killed, it is evidence of his disloyalty to Issus—the unpardonable sin. If he lives through the contest he is held acquitted of the charge that forced the sentence of the rites, as ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the legislature proceeded to examine the whole case, and Winthrop was brought to trial for exceeding his jurisdiction as a magistrate. A contest ensued between the deputies and assistants, which was finally decided by the influence of the elders. The result was that Winthrop was acquitted and Mr. Hubbert and the chief petitioners were fined. ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... guard, in the expectation and hope that a landing would be attempted. The militia during this afflicting scene discovered the very best disposition, and were eager to take revenge of the enemy or sacrifice their lives in the contest. ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull

... However, a judicial order requiring the payment of arrearages in alimony, which exceeded the alimony previously decreed, is invalid for want of due process, the respondent having been given no opportunity to contest it.[73] "A judgment obtained in violation of procedural due process," said Chief Justice Stone, "is not entitled to full faith and credit when sued ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... dangerous proposition, not only of allowing women to vote, but of giving them offices, was a bombshell in the camp of conservatism, and every influence that could be, was brought to bear against this ticket. After an exciting contest, the result showed that notwithstanding a powerful and influential opposition, the ticket was elected by a vote of from 186 to 220 out of 327 votes. This result has been all the more grateful, because in the opposition were to be found many of the most wealthy ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... to the cautious patriotism of Orange. He was for smiting at once the gigantic atrocity of the Spanish dominion, without waiting for the forging of the weapons by which the blows were to be dealt. He forgot that men and money were as necessary as wrath, in a contest with the most tremendous despotism of the world. "They wish," he wrote to Count Louis, "that we should meet these hungry wolves with remonstrances, using gentle words, while they are burning and cutting off heads.—Be it so then. Let us take the pen let them take the sword. For them deeds, for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... seen, such as might be expected of the delicate refining metaphysical mind, thinking out points for itself, and weighing the possible value of every word, and differed from those who were in the midst of the contest, and felt some form of resistance and protest needful. He was strongly averse to agitation on the subject, and at the same time grieved to find himself for the first time, to his own knowledge, not accepting the policy of those ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of this battle there had been silence in our little group, nor did we hear shout or word near us; feeling was too deep; on the issue of the contest depended ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose. The spectacles set them unhappily wrong; The point in dispute was, as all the world knows, To which the said spectacles ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... surprised, as it again cleared, to find that their own frigate, the quondam Maria Isabella, was their only opponent. So much were they dispirited by this discovery, that as soon as possible after the close of the contest, their ships of war were dismantled, the top masts and spars being formed into a double boom across the anchorage so as to prevent approach. The Spaniards were also previously unaware of my being in command ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... partake with gods and man in the attributes of free-will, conscious agency and susceptibility of pleasure and pain—such as the Harpies, the Gorgons, the Sirens, the Sphinx, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, etc. After a great struggle, or contest, among these wonderful creatures, there arises a stable government of Zeus, the chief among the gods. Then appears chaos, then the broad, firm, flat earth, with deep and dark tartarus below, and from these proceed different divinities and creatures, some grand and ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880

... a man misses. Her very daintiness and preciosity of speech indicated it. For where a man becomes stupid and silent, a woman covers her emotions with words and a clever speech. Not in vain is a proud-spirited girl stared down in such a contest of looks; brave deeds simply told by a friend are potent to win interest in advance; a straight, muscular figure, a brown skin, a clear, direct eye, a carriage of power and acknowledged authority, strike hard ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... gloried in it: he needed her. When the hero finally did appear, Ruth became filled with gentle self-mockery. He was no Hoddy, but a tremendous man, with hairy arms and bearded face and drink-shattered intellect. Day by day she followed the spiritual and physical contest between this man and woman. One day a pall of blackness encompassed the sick mind of the giant; and when he came to his senses, they properly functioned: and he saw his wife by ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... General Francois BOZIZE, who has since established a transitional government. Though the government has the tacit support of civil society groups and the main parties, a wide field of affiliated and independent candidates will contest the municipal, legislative, and presidential elections scheduled for February 2005. The government still does not fully control the countryside, where pockets ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... I do not contest the humanity of many masters, but I remember that there were humane masters too in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Bourbon; yet this did not prevent the discovery, on a rigid scrutiny, sometimes of excesses, ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... hears the din of arms and news comes that the Turks, Papists, and Roundheads are advancing in three armies. Lucifer and his hosts immediately set out to meet them and after a stubborn contest succeed in quelling the rebellion. More prisoners are brought before the King— Catholics, who had missed the way to Paradise, an innkeeper, five kings, assize-men and lawyers, gipsies, laborers and scholars. Scarcely is judgment passed on these than war again breaks out—soldiers ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... territory. The youth, with the premature vigour of his family, instantly cut his way through his opponents, and married the lady. His brother-in-law wished to persuade him to return by the low country, and thus to avoid any contest; but the young hero disdained to show any mark of fear before his bride, and her brother giving an addition of 2000 men to his suite, they forced their way back. Having made a pilgrimage to Jaganath, Jagat Prakas determined ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... l'outrance." A challenge or a combat a l'outrance, to extremity, was a fix'd term in the law of arms, used when the combatants engaged with an odium internecinum, an intention to destroy each other, in opposition to trials of skill at festivals, or on other occasions, where the contest was only for reputation or a prize. The sense therefore is, Let Fate, that has foredoom'd the exaltation of the sons of Banquo, enter the lists against me, with the utmost animosity, in defence of its own decrees, which I will endeavour ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... as Yudhishthir's kinsman count as foremost and the best? Royal Drupad by alliance surely might the claim contest! ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... Censor. 'He deserves our highest respect for the defiant and manly spirit that animated him in his untiring contest with the vices ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... get to the point of things, Philadelphia had what some of the fans called "one of them afternoons." There is no use trying to describe all the details of this so-called contest, for it is demoralizing to the young to see such things in print. Many criminals have confessed on the scaffold that they got their start watching the Athletics assault some honest young pitcher who was trying to support his aged mother. ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller

... savante," which is fought with the feet, as the name implies. Victory depends on a false movement, on some error of the calculation, rapid as lightning, which must be made and followed almost instinctively. During a period of time as short to the spectators as it seems long to the combatants, the contest lies in observation, so keen as to absorb the powers of mind and body, and yet concealed by preparatory feints whose slowness and apparent prudence seem to show that the antagonists are not intending to fight. This moment, which is followed by a rapid and decisive ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... said he, "I see I'm laboring under a mistake; you prefer working for your board—all right," and feeling a good deal more disconcerted than he ever supposed it possible for him to feel, he gave up the contest. ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... The contest lasted for a very brief while. The number of the slaughtered in proportion to the total number of men engaged was appalling. But this was not all. To it was immediately added the hasty hanging of men to the nearest trees, and Guilford ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... is sound; but it ignores the special local circumstances of the case. In the vast area on which the British Army was operating it was not possible to separate the two objectives. Moreover, the purely military resources of the enemy were waning; and the contest was resolving itself into an effort to put pressure on the country at large, rather than to smash the dwindling, evasive, and centrifugal commandos in the field. French's "drive," from a military point of view, was not a success; but it at least frightened Botha and the Transvaal ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... instructions, on which occasion some question was made, whether it would be proper he should proceed in the character of a merchant, according to the strict letter of the instructions, which Mr Aldworth conceived would procure him disrespect with the king; and, after some contest, some way was given to Mr Edwards in this affair, lest they should disagree in their proceedings, especially as it had been reported by some already, that he was a messenger from the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... with others; for the squirrel hoards his nuts, the aunt lays in her barley-corns, the moon knoweth her seasons, and the sun his going down: moreover, Chinese slates, multiplying rulers, and, as their aggregated wisdom, Babbage's machine, will stoutly contest so mechanical a fancy. Savoury steams, and those too smelling strongly of truth, assault the nostrils, as a Vitellite—what a name of hungry omen for the imperial devourer!—plausibly insinuates man to be "a cooking animal." ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... of Wartburg. In 1207 there occurred in this German castle, the Wartburg, a contest of the minstrels of the time. Wagner has immortalized this contest in "Tannhauser," in which he describes the victory of Walter von der Vogelweide over all the ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... mistook at first for an ordinary foot-pad, de Sigognac instantly drew his sword and attacked him. Lampourde, on his side, was ready for him, and pleased with the baron's way of handling his weapon, said to himself, though in an audible tone, "Now for a little fun." Then began a contest that would have delighted and astonished a connoisseur in fencing—such swift, lightning-like flashing of the blades, as they gave and parried cut and thrust—the clashing of the steel, the blue sparks that leaped from the contending ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... September, 1863, occurred the battle of Chickamauga, in which my regiment took a conspicuous part. The close of our own share in this contest is, as it were, burned into my memory with every least detail. It was about 6 P. M., when we found ourselves in line, under cover of a long, thin row of scrubby trees, beyond which lay a gentle slope, from which, again, rose a hill rather more abrupt, and crowned with ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell

... evening on the sidewalk before the hotel, the combined attack of these dogs occurs in their view, and perhaps affords them a pleasing and beneficial excitement. The placid and impartial manner with which the landlord himself regards the contest between the stranger and the town dogs will lead you to doubt whether his house is not too full to accommodate another guest, and whether he is not benevolently letting the dogs spare him the pain of refusing ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... the mere the great event of the day, the sledge races, were now in progress. As the competitors were many these must be run in heats, the winners of each heat standing on one side to compete in the final contest. Now these victors had a pretty prerogative not unlike that accorded to certain dancers in the cotillion of modern days. Each driver of a sledge was bound to carry a passenger in the little car in front of him, his own place being on the seat behind, whence he directed ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... overwhelmed Clodius in the senate to his face, both in a set speech, very weighty and serious, and also in an interchange of repartees, of which I append a specimen for your delectation. The rest lose all point and grace without the excitement of the contest, or, as you Greeks call it, the [Greek: agon]. Well, at the meeting of the senate on the 15th of May, being called on for my opinion, I spoke at considerable length on the high interests of the Republic, and brought in the following passage by a happy inspiration: "Do not, ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... her sisters-in-law had fallen into their respective husband's arms, and it was hard to say whether the men or the women were more hopelessly hysterical. Giovanni relinquished the contest reluctantly, seeing that he was altogether overmatched by the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... a white man than of a native. Were its instincts to carry it further, or were it influenced by any feeling of animosity or cruelty, it must be apparent that, as against the prodigious numbers that inhabit the forests of Ceylon, man would wage an unequal contest, and that of the two one or other must long since have been reduced to ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... take a hazel wand as that poor thing," said she. "This man in his late contest with your noble brother has slain a sprightlier swordsman than yourself, Earl Kenric. Ah, had I but known of his coming, this traitor had not served our island as he has done! 'Tis true, I might not have done aught to save the life of Earl Hamish ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... they could of the favouring element by keeping open order and kicking whenever they had the chance, whereas of course the other side played a tight game, and ran with the ball. Even for a novice like myself, it was interesting to watch a contest of this kind. The Fifteen evidently hoped to rush the thing and carry their goal before half-time deprived them of the wind, whereas the Eleven were mainly concerned to keep on the defensive and ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... grimly answered Old King Brady. "So it shall. And this lawyer will contest it on behalf of Miss Dalton, and baffle your design to rob her. And if it is proven that the will is a forgery, you can rest assured that I'll arrest you for the crooked work the moment I get my hands ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous

... splendide, - the last being an epithet she applied to everything the Capitol contained, and especially to a horrible picture representing the famous Clemence Isaure, the reputed foundress of the poetical contest, presiding on one of these occasions. I won- dered whether Clemence Isaure had been anything like this terrible Toulousaine of to-day, who would have been a capital figure-head for a floral game. The lady in whose honor the picture I have just men- tioned was painted ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... reasoned, as if the Devil having tried me with a masterstroke of temptation, and having suffered defeat, had abandoned the contest. Yet I was careful not to harbour that thought unduly, nor glory in my power, lest such presumption should lead to worse. I thanked Heaven for the strength it had lent me, and implored a continuance of its protection for a ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... if incompetent or a minor, was liable in the interest of the family itself to be supplanted by an uncle or cousin of more resolute character. The acknowledgment or exclusion of the bastards was a fruitful source of contest and most of these families in consequence were plagued with a crowd of discontented and vindictive kinsmen. This circumstance gave rise to continual outbreaks of treason and to frightful scenes of domestic ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... pleased at the successful termination of the contest. His shipmates, he said, suspected him—the pirates would have undoubtedly cut his throat had they got on board. He helped Desmond very scientifically in dressing ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... mother is a superb example of a scene imposed by the logic of the theme. On the other hand, in Mr. Henry Arthur Jones's finely conceived, though unequal, play, Michael and his Lost Angel, we miss what was surely an obligatory scene. The play is in fact a contest between the paganism of Audrie Lesden and the ascetic, sacerdotal idealism of Michael Feversham. In the second act, paganism snatches a momentary victory; and we confidently expect, in the third act, a set and strenuous effort ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... escape, not because he is in the least unaware of his power or inept in using it. Apparently he has no illusions concerning man and no respect for him as a superior being. He has been beaten by superior cunning, but never conquered, and he gives no parole to refrain from renewing the contest ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... not to wonder what side he took in these spirited family conflicts. No evidence, however, on such points appears in the dry legal documents; and all that we have for guide as to the effect in this impressionable time of his boyhood of the long months of contest, and of his strictly ordered holidays with his grandmother, is the declaration on the one hand that "filial piety ... his nearest relations agree was a shining part of his character," and on the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... dreadful contest, Lives like chaff were thrown away, Rome with all her pride and ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper

... to fight for you, my friend, and all womankind. The rights of woman, which have been ignored, or thought but lightly of, I shall strongly advocate, as opportunity occurs. I shall be misunderstood, over and underrated in the contest, but for that I care not. I only am too impatient to see the day when your sex shall not marry for mere shelter, and when labor of all kinds shall be open for their heads and hands, with remuneration commensurate with their efforts. I am ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... as the Reds held the balance of power on this side of the mountain range, the rancheria was in danger. Bows and knives against modern armament was no contest at all. And it would only be a matter of time before exploration on the part of the northern settlement—or some tracking down of Tatar fugitives—would bring the enemy across ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... there were frequent attempts to reach Udine by German flyers who were new to the ground. It was the first time that the Italian Air Corps had had to deal with a German attempt to contest their supremacy and they came well out of the trial. Ten enemy machines were brought down during the day, two individual Italian airmen accounting for three each. When the enemy machines were sighted heading for Udine the jarring scream of ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... destitute of letters, papers, and memorials of every kind. The practice of burying family archives and deeds which prevailed during the troubles, was adopted but with partial advantage, by those who anticipated the worst result of the contest. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... Wagner thought of doing what Germans call a comic pendant to that tragedy; though what there is in the Mastersingers that hangs from Tannhaeuser I beg the reader not to ask me. There is this similarity: the central scene of each is a minstrel-contest; there is this dissimilarity: one opera is tragic in spirit and the other comic in spirit. Beyond this there is no connection, whether of resemblance or of contrast, between the two. The plan was not developed in 1845, the obvious ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... more popular in this country, when James the First and Charles the First put forth the book of sports to be allowed and encouraged on Sundays. The Puritans called Sunday 'The Sabbath,' and a voluminous contest was carried on as to whether it ought not rather to be called 'The Lord's day.' In 1628, Mr. Brabourne, a clergyman of note, kept the Jewish Sabbath, and in a short time several churches, in England, assembled on that day, and were called 'seventh day, or Sabbath keepers'—many ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... bloodshed in the olden time, when Gorrado Trinci paraded the mangled remnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on mule-back, through Foligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the procession moved along the ramparts, I found myself in contest with a young man, who readily fell into conversation. He was very tall, with enormous breadth of shoulders, and long sinewy arms, like Michelangelo's favourite models. His head was small, curled over ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... grieved the noble heart of the Scottish commander to see so many valiant men urged to inevitable destruction; but still they advanced, and that his own might be preserved they must fall. To shorten the bloody contest, his direful weapons were worked with redoubled energy; and so mortal a shower fell that the heavens seemed to rain iron. The crushed and stricken enemy, shrinking under the mighty ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... Nat and his party, they, too, went away; And I haven't seen either for many a day. Still, don't be surprised If you see advertised, The name of Nat Ricket Connected with cricket, In some mighty score or some wonderful catch, In some North and South contest or good county match. And if ever, when passing by cricketing places, You see people talking and pulling long faces, 'Cause some country bumpkin has beaten the Graces, Just step to the gate and politely enquire, And see if they don't say, "N. Ricket, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... Garfield was asked to become a candidate. The schoolmaster consented; and as those were times of very great excitement, when the South was threatening to secede if a President hostile to the slave-owning interest was elected, the contest was fought out almost entirely along those particular lines. Garfield was returned as senator by a large majority, and took his seat in the Ohio Senate in January, 1860. There, his voice was always raised against slavery, ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen

... clogs and taints of clay, Hovers divine the Archetypal Man! Dim as those phantom ghosts of life that gleam And wander voiceless by the Stygian stream,— Fair as it stands in fields Elysian, Ere down to Flesh the Immortal doth descend:— If doubtful ever in the Actual life Each contest—here a victory crowns the end ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... commonly added that they also foster a manly spirit, both in the participants and in the spectators. Football is the particular game which will probably first occur to any one in this community when the question of the serviceability of athletic games is raised, as this form of athletic contest is at present uppermost in the mind of those who plead for or against games as a means of physical or moral salvation. This typical athletic sport may, therefore, serve to illustrate the bearing of athletics upon ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... with the events that led to it, marks a turning-point in literary as well as in political history. The public mind was in a state of ebullition very unlike that of an ordinary political contest, in which one party pulls while the other applies the drag, one seeks to maintain, the other to destroy. All parties were pulling in different directions; all sought to destroy, in order to reconstruct; principles, except with the extremists, were simply expedients, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... that aptness which both have to a relapse. This is plain in the violent diseases of ambition and avarice. I have known ambition, when cured at court by frequent disappointments (which are the only physic for it), to break out again in a contest for foreman of the grand jury at an assizes; and have heard of a man who had so far conquered avarice, as to give away many a sixpence, that comforted himself, at last, on his deathbed, by making a crafty and advantageous ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... was returning from a reconnoissance it had made in that direction. He avoided the encounter and sent back to Todd's Tavern, at first for a regiment, but subsequently for the entire brigade. When there reinforcements came up a furious cavalry contest took place, with charges and counter-charges, and hand to hand combats. It was not without an element of romance, in that lonely spot, far from either army, under the resplendent light of the full moon; recalling, in the words of a Southern chronicler, some scene of knightly ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... statesman, because his genius was literary not political, and because (being a scrupulously conscientious man, and without the inheritance of a family political creed to guide him) he found it hard to judge on which side right lay. The three crises of his life, his defence of Roscius, his contest with Catiline, and his resistance to Antony, were precisely the three occasions when no such doubts were possible, and on all these the conduct of Cicero, as well as his genius, shines with its brightest lustre. To the speech for Roscius, his first and therefore ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... The New York Morning Telegraph contest to determine the most popular performer in vaudeville in 1912, and was elected President of "The White Rats"—the vaudeville actors' protective Union—in 1914. ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... is gone; and we must again go to war. Were my generals as great fools as some of my Ministers, I should despair indeed of the issue of my contest with these insolent islanders. Many believe that had I been more ably supported in my Cabinet, I should not have been under the necessity of taking the field, as a rupture ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... more broken, and there is a hill not far from the river. Just below the falls is a little island in the middle of the river well covered with timber. Here on a cottonwood tree an eagle had fixed its nest, and seemed the undisputed mistress of a spot, to contest whose dominion neither man nor beast would venture across the gulfs that surround it, and which is further secured by the mist rising from the falls. This solitary bird could not escape the observation of the Indians ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... himself with equal ardour and success. But the unremitting labour of conducting a public journal soon began materially to undermine the energies of a constitution which, never robust, had been already impaired by a course of untiring literary occupation. The excitement of a political contest at Leeds, during a general parliamentary election, completed the physical prostration of the poet; he removed from Leeds to Knaresborough, and from thence to Laverock Bank, near Edinburgh, the residence of his friend Mr Johnstone. His case was hopeless; after lingering ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... leader of the Roman people he was distinguished for force rather than for flattery. Once, at a gladiatorial contest, when the crowd was urging its petition strongly, he not only would not grant its wish, but further ordered this command of Domitian's to be proclaimed: "Be silent." The words were not uttered, though. The herald raised his hand and by that very gesture quieted the people as he ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... guns. This force speedily dislodged a superior force of the enemy, and pursued them for two miles, as far as the hamlet of Hainesville, where orders from Gen. Patterson to cease the pursuit allowed the rear-guard of the rebels to elude their grasp. The contest and the chase lasted but two hours, and at noon the advance guard encamped at Hainesville. The remainder of the day was consumed by the army in selecting grounds and pitching tents; and by night, Gen. Patterson, with twenty thousand men, had succeeded in marching seven miles, routing Col. Jackson's ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... quite interested, bobbing from one side of the topgallant-forecastle to the other, and trying to obtain the best view he could of the contest. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... morally certain the savage could be at no great distance; hence the pursuer was cautious in his advance. The American Indian would rather seek than avoid an encounter, and he was no foe to be despised in a hand-to-hand contest. The trapper was in that mood that he would not have hesitated to encounter two of them in deadly combat for the possession of the bird which was properly his own, and which he was not willing to yield until compelled to do so by ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... he had finished reading this dispatch, on the back of which I could see the English postmark, he said to me—these are his words:—'You see, things were never brighter; it is only a question of time; and by holding out a little longer, we shall compel the enemy to retire and give up the contest. With the re-enforcements coming, Lee will have about one hundred thousand men. With that force, he will be able to repulse all General Grant's assaults. Things look dark at this moment, but the cause was never ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... the point which my ambitious soul strove to attain. The fear, in such cases, produced the very disaster, from the anticipated dread of which it had arisen. I again failed—failed egregiously—failed utterly and for ever! I never again attempted the fearful trial. I gave up the contest, yielded the field to my inferiors, better-nerved, though inferior, and, with all my learning, all my eloquence, my voice, my manner; my resources of study, thought, and utterance, fled from sight—fled here—to bury myself in the wilderness, and descend to the ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... indeed, and a test of the powers of a man's mind. So excellent is it in itself that whosoever shall get possession thereof, will be assured that no problem exists too difficult for him to disentangle. As a rival of Ferreo, Niccolo Tartaglia of Brescia, my friend, at that time when he engaged in a contest with Antonio Maria Fiore, the pupil of Ferreo, made out this same rule to help secure the victory, and this rule he imparted to me after I had diligently besought him thereanent. I, indeed, had been ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... being a race manifesting marked deficiency in music they have developed astonishing musical taste and ability. During a recent visit to these islands after an absence of twenty-seven years, I attended a Sunday-school exhibition, which was largely a musical contest; the voices were sweet and rich; and the difficulty of the part songs, easily carried through by children and adults, revealed a musical sense that surpasses any ordinary Sunday school of the United States or England with ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick



Words linked to "Contest" :   dispute, athletic competition, tourney, athletic contest, battle of wits, chicken, race, series, trial, spelling contest, contention, contestation, bout, social event, contester, contestee, championship, popularity contest, oppose, spelldown, playoff, contend, challenge, field trial, spelling bee



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