tug of war

See also: tug-of-war

English

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈtʌɡ əv ˌwɔː(r)/
  • Audio (General Australian):(file)

Noun

tug of war (plural tugs of war or tug of wars)

  1. A game or competition in which two teams pull or tug on opposite ends of a rope trying to force the other team over the line which initially marked the middle between the two teams.
    • 2005 June 16, Rachel Whiteread, Gordon Burn, “Rachel Whiteread in conversation with Gordon Burn”, in Embankment (The Unilever Series), London: Tate Publishing, →ISBN, page 74, column 2:
      [Gordon Burn:] You told me you had tugs-of-war with your sisters over small, common-or-garden, apparently insignificant household things, things that you felt meant more to you than the others.
  2. (idiomatic) A dispute between two parties, particularly an entrenched, back-and-forth dispute.
    • 2008, Alexei Trochev, Judging Russia: The Role of the Constitutional Court in Russian Politics 1990-2006, →ISBN, page 72:
      To sum up, the dynamics of a "tug-of-war" between the supporters and opponents of the powerful and independent constitutional court dispel the traditional version of judicial empowerment as a struggle between “prostrong Court” reformers and antistrong Court” reactionaries.

Translations

See also

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