What's the difference between debate and strife?

Debate


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To engage in combat for; to strive for.
  • (v. t.) To contend for in words or arguments; to strive to maintain by reasoning; to dispute; to contest; to discuss; to argue for and against.
  • (v. i.) To engage in strife or combat; to fight.
  • (v. i.) To contend in words; to dispute; hence, to deliberate; to consider; to discuss or examine different arguments in the mind; -- often followed by on or upon.
  • (v. t.) A fight or fighting; contest; strife.
  • (v. t.) Contention in words or arguments; discussion for the purpose of elucidating truth or influencing action; strife in argument; controversy; as, the debates in Parliament or in Congress.
  • (v. t.) Subject of discussion.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In a debate in the House of Commons, I will ask Britain, the US and other allies to convert generalised offers of help into more practical support with greater air cover, military surveillance and helicopter back-up, to hunt down the terrorists who abducted the girls.
  • (2) In attacking the motion to freeze the licence fee during today's Parliamentary debate the culture secretary, Andy Burnham, criticised the Tory leader.
  • (3) Amid the acrimony of the failed debate on the Malaysia Agreement, something was missed or forgotten: many in the left had changed their mind.
  • (4) The first experiment gave good results, although only one participant had any previous experience of hinge axis location, and it is debatable whether or not this experience is necessary before satisfactory results can be obtained.
  • (5) She said that even as she approached the gates, she was debating with the boy’s father whether to let the first-grader enter.
  • (6) But because current donor contributions are not sufficient to cover the thousands of schools in need of security, I will ask in the commons debate that the UK government allocates more.
  • (7) In a poll before the debate, 48% predicted that Merkel, who will become Europe's longest serving leader if re-elected on 22 September, would emerge as the winner of the US-style debate, while 26% favoured Steinbruck, a former finance minister who is known for his quick-wit and rhetorical skills, but sometimes comes across as arrogant.
  • (8) Conservative commentators responded with fury to what they believed was inappropriate meddling at a crucial moment in the town hall debate.
  • (9) The citizenship debate is tawdry, conflated and ultimately pointless | Richard Ackland Read more On Wednesday, the prime minister criticised lawyers for backing terrorists.
  • (10) While there has been almost no political reform during their terms of office, there have been several ambitious steps forward in terms of environmental policy: anti-desertification campaigns; tree planting; an environmental transparency law; adoption of carbon targets; eco-services compensation; eco accounting; caps on water; lower economic growth targets; the 12th Five-Year Plan; debate and increased monitoring of PM2.5 [fine particulate matter] and huge investments in eco-cities, "clean car" manufacturing, public transport, energy-saving devices and renewable technology.
  • (11) All 17 candidates are going to be participating in debate night and I think that’s a wonderful opportunity Reince Priebus Republican party officials have defended the decision to limit participation, pointing out that the chasing pack will get a chance to debate separately before the main event.
  • (12) "Medical professionals have perhaps been the least involved [of all sectors] in debates and discussions around abortion, and anti-choice groups have very effectively carried out a deliberate strategy of targeting and influencing health professionals.
  • (13) The only thing the media will talk about in the hours and days after the debate will be Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the results of the election, making him appear small, petty and conspiratorial.
  • (14) Opposition to legal abortion takes magical thinking and a lack of logic | Jessica Valenti Read more The only female Republican candidate for the White House has doubled down on her restrictive position over reproductive rights since a successful debate performance .
  • (15) Although the debate in the US has led to some piecemeal reforms – including the USA Freedom Act and modest policy changes – many of the most intrusive government surveillance programs remain largely intact.
  • (16) The debate certainly hit upon a larger issue: the tendency for people in positions of social and cultural power to tell the stories of minorities for them, rather than allowing minority communities to speak for themselves.
  • (17) On the mothers' internet forum Mumsnet, 44% of women who voted in a post-debate survey said they were now thinking of voting Lib Dem, compared with 23% three weeks ago.
  • (18) Both a voter and Cooper repeatedly asked him if he stood by his comments in the last Republican presidential debate when he insisted that was the case.
  • (19) Before the debate, most of our focus group expected David Cameron to win narrowly “because he’s best at debates”.
  • (20) The treatment of hypertension in pregnancy has been a matter of debate, but the treatment of choice in late pregnancy is delivery.

Strife


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of striving; earnest endeavor.
  • (n.) Exertion or contention for superiority; contest of emulation, either by intellectual or physical efforts.
  • (n.) Altercation; violent contention; fight; battle.
  • (n.) That which is contended against; occasion of contest.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian A journey that started five years ago with a promise to bring Labour together – to avoid the civil strife that traditionally followed election defeat – risks ending where it began: contemplating electoral wilderness.
  • (2) Almost three years after US troops withdrew from Iraq and 11 years after their invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the war on Islamic State is drawing Washington back into the middle of Iraq’s power struggles and bloody sectarian strife.
  • (3) Overall, the couples who successfully completed therapy were in less strifeful marriages and were confronted with specific life change events as opposed to the couples who dropped out, who gave evidence of chronic marital difficulties.
  • (4) Economic openness is the glue that binds the EU together and it is the solution to the crisis of European competitiveness that long predates the current strife.
  • (5) Many blamed that failure for the industrial strife which dogged the Wilson and Callaghan governments over the following decade.
  • (6) On the biggest question of our time – Britain’s membership of the European Union, internal strife has left the government without a clear position, as party interest trumps national interest.
  • (7) The majority of these children come from Guatemala , Honduras and El Salvador – three of the many countries ravaged by civil strife, drug wars and economic turmoil precipitated by US political and military intervention over several decades, as well as free-trade regimes and the corporate plunder of Latin America's natural resources.
  • (8) Organised crime has taken hold and human trafficking has flourished thanks to arranged marriages, giving rise to more family strife.
  • (9) Sam Akaki Democratic Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Africa • There are calls for the EU to act to save migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean, but where are the calls for the UN to tackle the strife and oppression in South Sudan, Eritrea, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan … which are the root cause of this problem?
  • (10) After an extraordinary year, experts say the site now faces a series of challenges – not least the problem of how to keep getting bigger in the face of government interventions and its own internal strife.
  • (11) Current western complacency and silence will only bring more chaos and strife.
  • (12) Their first season in the Premier League has seen further off-field strife with the sacking as head of recruitment of Iain Moody , who was replaced by a friend of Tan's son who has no football background.
  • (13) Yet to black Americans who are all too familiar with the burdens of segregation and the struggle for equality, this idyllic image of a gentle country without racial strife sounds like absurd propaganda.
  • (14) Sunday's poll brought months of strife to a bloody climax, with 19 people reported killed in unrest across the country .
  • (15) Libya’s spiral into chaos is a story of international neglect as well as of domestic strife.
  • (16) Then the total trends of the suicide rate were reexamined in comparison with a control group, and the recent trends after the student strife (1970) were confirmed in comparison with the 15-year period before the strife.
  • (17) Her case that the state had become too dominant and that trade union power needed to be curbed seemed plausible given the industrial strife of the winter of discontent.
  • (18) The expectation that care will be provided to old people by their daughters or daughters-in-law may be frustrated if the younger generation of women are disabled or otherwise engaged, resulting in possible family strife or rejection.
  • (19) Decades of ethnic strife in India's north-east have forced hundreds of thousands of young people to move out of the region in search of education and employment.
  • (20) I’m not consciously melancholic – in fact, I am often the opposite – so that melancholy feel must come from the way I use chords.” Stolen Recordings William Doyle, aka East India Youth, on Total Strife Forever (Stolen Recordings) “ Total Strife Forever was a really important step for me personally.