contention
- 01 C1 Advanced
angry disagreement or fighting between people or groups.
a state of strife, dispute, or heated competition between parties.
Simple“The new housing project has been a source of contention in the village for years.”
In context“The proposed tax reforms became a major bone of contention between the two political parties during the final weeks of the election campaign.”
- 02 C1 Advanced
an opinion or idea that you state as being true during an argument.
an assertion or point maintained in an argument; a position taken or contended for.
Simple“It is his contention that the company failed because of poor management.”
In context“The lawyer's primary contention was that the evidence had been tampered with before it reached the laboratory for analysis.”
- 03 C2 Proficiency
a situation where different parts of a computer system try to use the same resource at once.
competition by multiple components or users for a limited shared resource, such as bandwidth or memory.
Simple“The network slowed down because of heavy contention for the available bandwidth.”
In context“The database administrator identified significant resource contention as the primary cause of the latency spikes observed during peak operating hours.”
Synonyms
“It will be a tense double-header as nine drivers are currently in contention for the championship title, with fellow Brit Jake Dennis currently topping the table.”
“With England’s Tino Livramento sidelined by calf trouble, Miley Jr is in real contention to start against Liverpool.”
From Middle English contencion, borrowed from Old French contencion, from Latin contentio, contentionem, from contendō (past participle contentus); equivalent to contend + -tion (similar formation to attention).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.