1An event in which people compete for supremacy in a sport, activity, or particular quality.

1. 1.1 A competition for a political position.
   the presidential contest

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Here the political contest had a national dimension.
   • He asks which of them will take the decisive initiative in the next round of political contests.
   • This dilute corporatism does not exclude a contest of political parties.
   • I think most regard such lunges for underdog status, at least in relation to a political contest, as a byword.
   • Political contests are battles of ideas - and a slick campaign will not work without values and content at its heart.
   • Third, critics will say eliminating the limits on contributions would lead to more corruption in political contests.
   • As political contests sink further into the gutter of abuse, public cynicism about and alienation from politics can only intensify.
   • Left leaning proponents of the precautionary principle need to think carefully about how they would fare in political contests over their favorite social policies.
   • Eight days to what people in Iowa like to call the first real political contest in the presidential election.
   • Presidential contests differ from other types of political races.
   • But we had a clear understanding between ourselves that there was a distinction between the political contest and the personal friendship.
   • They could then reduce the political contest to one between core, politically active constituencies.
   • Then, presidential candidates can't ignore the early political contests in New Hampshire and Iowa, or can they?
   • After all, this may be one of the most interesting contests in recent American political history.
   • Postcolonial criticism bears witness to the unequal and uneven forces of cultural representation involved in the contest for political and social authority within the modern world order.
   • Or at least that is the message that is being broadcast 24 hours a day as the contest for the new position of Mayor heats up.
   • It is also the outcome of the calculated political manipulation of the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.
   • Watching the Conservative Party leadership contest, political neutrals are unsure whether to laugh or cry.
   • We'll get heartily sick of these two issues over the next three months but, for now, both introduce wonderful novelty to the political contest.
   • It has grown up out of the political contests which have raged from time to time about currency questions.

   Synonyms

   competition, battle, fight, clash, feud
2. 1.2 A dispute or conflict.
   a contest between traditional and liberal views

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Participants must agree to arbitration outside of the US court system for conflicts arising from this contest.
   • Leading the charge are two of our finest and bravest warriors and I just hope that the contest can be resolved without recourse to conflict.
   • Part B concentrates on such contests and disputes, exploring them more systematically than did the prior materials.
   • This paper assesses, and contests, the long tradition of attacks on the use of invented sentences in language teaching.
   • Nobody can take part in the traditional European contest for possession after the tackle if his nose is more than 6in off the ground.
   • Hence, the contests were not resident-intruder situations and not merely boundary disputes.
   • Thus, it appeared that any minor conflict might quickly escalate into a nuclear contest and lead to the destruction of much of Europe in the process.
   • Thus, these special units really just reduce the conflict into a tit for tat contest.
   • Some deputies last night said they still hoped that at least one of the four would withdraw to rein in a contest all hope will avoid conflict.
   • In such a contest the traditional discomfort associated with the mogul can be put to one side because it serves a greater good.
   • In contrast, the pragmatic policy, consistent with his own perception of the conflict, viewed the war purely as a military contest.
   • Stalin had not selected his closest subordinates with a view to their forming a closely knit band of brothers, and this meant that the contest for power would not be purely a matter of conflicting policies.
   • Everything said makes it possible to conclude that armed struggle is truly the main form of contest in military conflicts and their specific content.
   • The contest over tropes of traditional Africa and measures of authenticity in postcolonial arts and politics can be thought of in a similar manner.
   • Directors have turned the traditional good versus evil contest into the screen classics.
   • After a rough and disputed contest - the aluminium industry was notorious for its murders and gangsterism - he won.
   • Street fights, and other contests sometimes developed between workers in guilds that maintained traditional rivalries.
   • I don't at this stage, and I never have thought, that it's constructive to characterise it as a conflict or a contest.
   • Thus the struggle for legitimacy and recognition is not only a contest between traditional authorities and state actors.
   • Rather, it's a return to the traditional geopolitical contest.

   Synonyms

   struggle, conflict, confrontation, collision, clash, battle, fight, combat, tussle, skirmish, duel, race

1Engage in competition to attain (a position of power)

1. 1.1 Take part in (a competition or election)
   a coalition was formed to contest the presidential elections

   Example sentencesExamples

   • It's bad enough now with 25 parties contesting the general election.
   • After the Russian troops left Chechnya by 1997, he contested the presidential election there.
   • ‘I could easily see a situation where we would not contest a presidential election,’ said the source.
   • Let them take to active campaigning now, contest the elections next time, and later perhaps, even become Ministers.
   • So you have a very large number of contractors contesting elections.
   • No one has any real doubt about who's won Egypt's first contested presidential election.
   • A number of NU leaders are contesting the presidential election.
   • This is because it could force nationalist opposition parties to share a pro-euro platform with Labour while contesting a parliamentary election campaign.
   • But by 1800, contested presidential elections were a regular feature of American government.
   • Methodology was contested in the election of eight senators out of a total of 7,500 posts filled.
   • ‘There is no internal pressure to contest the presidential election,’ one source said.
   • Jones returned and contested the general election unsuccessfully…
   • Together, they campaigned for the right to contest the presidential election scheduled for December 1990.
   • Six candidates are contesting the election from Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, the UK Independence Party and the Green Party, as well as one independent.
   • The two candidates then contest the general election.
   • The party's general council decided following the last election they would contest the next poll as an independent party, a spokesperson said.
   • He was minister for health from 1954 to 1957 and contested the presidential elections of 1966 and 1973.
   • The party is now preparing to contest Portugal's presidential election, which is due to be held in January next year.
   • According to the presidential election law, a party must win at least 3 percent of House seats or 5 percent of the vote to contest the presidential election.
   • The Progressive Democrats are not contesting the European elections but the party is running 127 candidates in the local elections, compared to 62 in 1999.

2Oppose (an action, decision, or theory) as mistaken or wrong.

1. 2.1 Engage in dispute about.
   the issues have been hotly contested

   Example sentencesExamples

   • However, the figures are hotly contested by all groups.
   • The event at the Grange Hotel, which attracted 150 people, was generously supported by local companies, and some auction items were hotly contested.
   • Here we had a mere fifteen year-old brought on as a substitute in a hotly contested senior final who was subsequently felled and left unconscious.
   • The directive, which is up for review at the close of 2002, will no doubt be a hotly contested debate.
   • In all my days I have never seen such an honest football team, hotly contesting every ball before gathering and breaking out into a habitual grace rarely seen outside the great opera halls.
   • This is a hotly contested issue in the state of Arizona, many other states in this country, certainly all of the border states.
   • Turnout surged in such Southern Bible Belt states as Alabama and Tennessee, which had no hotly contested races on their ballots.
   • The idea that the history is more an interpretive art than a precise science is hotly contested - even among historians.
   • Leaders openly contest their positions in front of Australian voters?
   • This latter claim especially could be hotly contested.
   • The ‘cause’ of an individual's sexual orientation is one of the most hotly contested debates within the scientific community.
   • The question of whether more homeless people become mentally ill or whether more mentally ill people are sliding into severe poverty is hotly contested.
   • In a hotly contested lawsuit before a federal appeals court, two peer-to-peer companies are about to gain a vast army of allies: America's librarians.
   • The party will need to weather 80-odd hotly contested preselections.
   • The troops stated that their firing was in retaliation to a militant attack on them, a charge hotly contested by human rights groups in the state.
   • The senior A and B race, which is of classic status this year will be hotly contested as it is used as a selection race for early season Irish international teams.
   • Education and its reform were hotly contested topics of debate in Regency Spain.
   • Both teams get the chance to move ahead today, with the critical doubles rubber in the heat of the early afternoon promising to be a hotly contested affair.
   • Even on the eve of what may be a hotly contested re-election campaign, the governor is supposed to lead, not divide.
   • This was hotly contested in the ensuring discussion.

   Synonyms

   debate, argue about, dispute, quarrel over