contention

UK/kənˈtɛnʃən/US/kənˈtɛnʃən/

nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,065 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: contentions

A contention is a point argued for, or a state of disagreement. My contention is that, a bone of contention, in contention.

In an argument your contention is the claim you are defending, which is a useful and precise word. In contention means still in the running, and a bone of contention is the specific thing two sides are quarrelling over.

Definitions of contention

1nouncontentionA point argued for, or a state of disagreement.C1
“It is my contention that the new law will hurt small businesses the most.”

contention is a claim.

Where it comes from

Latin contentio comes from contendere, to strive — con plus tendere, to stretch.

Latin
contentio
Old French
contencion
Middle English
contencion
English, today
contention

From Middle English contencion, borrowed from Old French contencion, from Latin contentio, from contendō (past participle contentus); equivalent to contend + tion (similar formation to attention).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

contention in the wild

The intent is to eliminate contention among nodes.
Shared-nothing architecture
Bus contention is an undesirable state in computer design where more than one device on a bus attempts to place values on it at the same time.
Bus contention
The contention of the bards was a literary controversy of early 17th century Gaelic Ireland, lasting from 1616 to 1624, probably peaking in 1617.
Contention of the bards
Resolving resource contention problems is one of the basic functions of operating systems.
Resource contention
Failure to properly resolve resource contention problems may result in a number of problems, including deadlock, livelock, and thrashing.
Resource contention

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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.

Related words

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