What's the difference between fight and strife?

Fight


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To strive or contend for victory, with armies or in single combat; to attempt to defeat, subdue, or destroy an enemy, either by blows or weapons; to contend in arms; -- followed by with or against.
  • (v. i.) To act in opposition to anything; to struggle against; to contend; to strive; to make resistance.
  • (v. t.) To carry on, or wage, as a conflict, or battle; to win or gain by struggle, as one's way; to sustain by fighting, as a cause.
  • (v. t.) To contend with in battle; to war against; as, they fought the enemy in two pitched battles; the sloop fought the frigate for three hours.
  • (v. t.) To cause to fight; to manage or maneuver in a fight; as, to fight cocks; to fight one's ship.
  • (v. i.) A battle; an engagement; a contest in arms; a combat; a violent conflict or struggle for victory, between individuals or between armies, ships, or navies, etc.
  • (v. i.) A struggle or contest of any kind.
  • (v. i.) Strength or disposition for fighting; pugnacity; as, he has a great deal of fight in him.
  • (v. i.) A screen for the combatants in ships.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) beta-Endorphin blocked the development of fighting responses when a low footshock intensity was used, but facilitated it when a high shock intensity was delivered.
  • (2) A 45-year-old mother of four, named as Hediye Sen, was killed during clashes in Cizre, while a 70-year-old died of a heart attack during fighting in Silopi, according to hospital sources.
  • (3) At the ceremony, the Taliban welcomed dialogue with Washington but said their fighters would not stop fighting.
  • (4) A dozen peers hold ministerial positions and Westminster officials are expecting them to keep the paperwork to run the country flowing and the ministerial seats warm while their elected colleagues fight for votes.
  • (5) I hope they fight for the money to make their jobs worth doing, because it's only with the money (a drop in the ocean though it may be) that they'll be able to do anything.
  • (6) They argue that the US, the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases per capita (China recently surpassed us in sheer volume), needs to lead the fight to limit carbon emissions, rather continuing to block global treaties as it has done in the past.
  • (7) If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them.
  • (8) How big tobacco lost its final fight for hearts, lungs and minds Read more Shares in Imperial closed down 1% and British American Tobacco lost 0.75%, both underperforming the FTSE100’s 0.3% decline.
  • (9) But still we have to fight for health benefits, we have to jump through loops … Why doesn’t the NFL offer free healthcare for life, especially for those suffering from brain injury?” The commissioner, however, was quick to remind Davis that benefits are agreed as part of the collective bargaining process held between the league and the players’ union, and said that they had been extended during the most recent round of negotiations.
  • (10) Unlike most birds of prey, which are territorial and fight each other over nesting and hunting grounds, the hen harrier nests close to other harriers.
  • (11) Like many families, we’ve had to move to escape the fighting.
  • (12) Critics of wind power peddle the same old myths about investment in new energy sources adding to families' fuel bills , preferring to pick a fight with people concerned about the environment, than stand up to vested interests in the energy industry, for the hard-pressed families and pensioners being ripped off by the energy giants.
  • (13) When the election comes, we won’t be campaigning for a coalition... ...we will be fighting heart and soul for a majority Conservative Government – because that is what our country needs.
  • (14) We have much more fighting to do!” Now Cherwell is preparing to publish letters or articles from other students who have been inspired to open up about their own ordeals.
  • (15) We need to put our heads together, and get our act together to fight corruption.
  • (16) It’s useless if we try and fight with them through force, so we try and fight with them through humour.” “There is a saying that laughing is the best form of medicine.
  • (17) He was fighting to breathe.” The decision on her father’s case came just 10 days after a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, found there was not enough evidence to indict a white police officer for shooting dead an unarmed black teenager called Michael Brown.
  • (18) That’s why I thought: ‘I hope Tyson wins – even if he never gives me a shot.’ As long as the heavyweight titles are out of Germany we could have some interesting fights.
  • (19) Everyone expressed commitment to fight climate change.
  • (20) His greatest legacy, besides his three children, is the joy and happiness he offered to others, particularly to those fighting personal battles.

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.