conflict

UK/ˈkɒn.flɪkt/US/ˈkɑn.flɪkt/

nounB15 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #2,667 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: conflicts, conflicting, conflicted

A conflict is a clash — two sides, two demands or two versions of a thing that cannot both win. A row that will not settle, a war on the evening news, two meetings booked into the same hour of your Tuesday.

Watch the stress, because it moves: the noun is CONflict, the verb is conFLICT, and the verb means to be incompatible, as in the dates conflict with my holiday. Armed conflict is the careful, official word for war. A conflict of interest is a fixed phrase, and you are in one when your private gain pulls against the job you were trusted with. In Git and other version control, a conflict is what you get when two people edit the same lines: the machine refuses to choose, hands you both versions, and waits. The adjective conflicting turns up all over the news — conflicting reports, conflicting accounts.

Definitions of conflict

1noundisputeA serious disagreement or struggle between people or groups.B1
“The conflict between the two departments had been running for years.”
synonyms: dispute, clash, friction
2nounwarFighting between armies or armed groups.B2
“Thousands left the country during the conflict.”
synonyms: war, warfare, hostilities
3nounincompatibilityA situation in which two things cannot both happen or both be true.B2
“There is a conflict between what the label says and what the tests found.”
synonyms: clash, incompatibility
4nounconflictIn version control, two sets of edits to the same lines that the program cannot merge on its own.B2
“The merge left a conflict in three files, all in the same function.”
5verbclashTo clash with something; to be impossible to hold together with it.B2
“His account conflicts with everything the witnesses said.”
synonyms: clash, contradict

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

conflict is a clash.

Where it comes from

Conflict comes from Latin cōnflīctus, from conflīgō, 'to strike together' — com-, 'together', with flīgō, 'to strike'. The picture is two things swung into each other, which is exactly what a border conflict, a scheduling conflict and a merge conflict all are.

Latin
cōnflīctus
English, today
conflict

Built from

conflīgō · Latin — to strike together

From Latin cōnflīctus, from com- + flīctus, past participle of conflīgō (“to strike together”), from com- + flīgō (whence con-).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Computing & Code

First appears in chapter 9 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

conflict in the wild

The conflict began on 2 April 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, followed by the invasion of South Georgia the next day.
Falklands War
The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, which formally returned possession to Britain.
Falklands War
Typically, a conflict of interest arises when an individual occupies two social roles simultaneously, generating opposing benefits or loyalties.
Conflict of interest
In India, the conflict is also referred to as Operation Vijay, which was the codename of the Indian military operation in the region.
Kargil War
In total, one in three of the 7.6 million registered victims of the conflict are children, and since 1985, 8,000 minors have disappeared.
Colombian conflict

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Definitions of conflict

1noundisputeA serious disagreement or struggle between people or groups.B1

“The conflict between the two departments had been running for years.”

synonyms: dispute, clash, friction

2nounwarFighting between armies or armed groups.B2

“Thousands left the country during the conflict.”

synonyms: war, warfare, hostilities

3nounincompatibilityA situation in which two things cannot both happen or both be true.B2

“There is a conflict between what the label says and what the tests found.”

synonyms: clash, incompatibility

4nounconflictIn version control, two sets of edits to the same lines that the program cannot merge on its own.B2

“The merge left a conflict in three files, all in the same function.”

5verbclashTo clash with something; to be impossible to hold together with it.B2

“His account conflicts with everything the witnesses said.”

synonyms: clash, contradict

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

conflict is a clash.