# contention

/kənˈtɛnʃən/ (US) · /kəntˈɛnʃən/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/contention
Updated: 2026-06-20

## Senses

### 1. disagreement or conflict

noun · CEFR C1 · Formal

angry disagreement or fighting between people or groups.

For teachers: a state of strife, dispute, or heated competition between parties.

- The new housing project has been a source of contention in the village for years.
- The proposed tax reforms became a major bone of contention between the two political parties during the final weeks of the election campaign.

### 2. a claim or argument

noun · CEFR C1 · Formal · Academic

an opinion or idea that you state as being true during an argument.

For teachers: an assertion or point maintained in an argument; a position taken or contended for.

- It is his contention that the company failed because of poor management.
- The lawyer's primary contention was that the evidence had been tampered with before it reached the laboratory for analysis.

### 3. resource competition

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical

a situation where different parts of a computer system try to use the same resource at once.

For teachers: competition by multiple components or users for a limited shared resource, such as bandwidth or memory.

- The network slowed down because of heavy contention for the available bandwidth.
- The database administrator identified significant resource contention as the primary cause of the latency spikes observed during peak operating hours.

## Examples

- The new law is a major point of contention between the two parties.
- The main point of contention during the meeting was how to distribute the remaining budget among the departments.
- Her central contention is that the current economic model fails to account for environmental degradation, a claim that sparked significant debate among the panel of experts.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.