Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Strife

Strife, n. [OF. estrif. See Strive.] 1. The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [Archaic] Shak.

2. Exertion or contention for superiority; contest of emulation, either by intellectual or physical efforts.

Doting about questions and strifes of words. 1 Tim. vi. 4.

Thus gods contended — noble strife - Who most should ease the wants of life. Congreve.

3. Altercation; violent contention; fight; battle.

Twenty of them fought in this black strife. Shak.

These vows, thus granted, raised a strife above Betwixt the god of war and queen of love. Dryden.

4. That which is contended against; occasion of contest. [Obs.] "Lamenting her unlucky strife." Spenser.

Syn. — Contest; struggle; quarrel. See Contention.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.