Adjacent Words

tug-of-war definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: any hard struggle between equally matched groups
2: a contest in which teams pull of opposite ends of a rope; the team dragged across a central line loses

Merriam Webster's

noun (plural tugs-of-war) Date: 1677 1. a struggle for supremacy or control usually involving two antagonists 2. a contest in which two teams pull against each other at opposite ends of a rope with the object of pulling the middle of the rope over a mark on the ground

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

also tug of war(tugs-of-war) 1. A tug-of-war is a sports event in which two teams test their strength by pulling against each other on opposite ends of a rope. N-VAR 2. You can use tug-of-war to refer to a situation in which two people or groups both want the same thing and are fairly equally matched in their struggle to get it. Chelsea and Aston Villa were involved in a tug of war for Liverpool's Ray Houghton last night. N-VAR

Moby Thesaurus

action, aerial combat, affray, armored combat, attraction, battle, battle royal, brush, bullfight, clash, clash of arms, cockfight, combat, conflict, dogfight, draft, drawing, drayage, embroilment, exchange of blows, extraction, fight, fire fight, fray, ground combat, hand-to-hand combat, hand-to-hand fight, haulage, hauling, heaving, house-to-house combat, naval combat, passage of arms, pitched battle, pull, pulling, pulling power, quarrel, rumble, running fight, scramble, scrimmage, scuffle, shoving match, skirmish, stand-up fight, street fight, struggle, tauromachy, towage, towing, traction, tractive power, tugging, tussle