0 to compete in order to win something: --
He's contending against someone with twice his experience.
There are three world-class tennis players contending for this title.
2 to compete in order to win something or to achieve a position of leadership: --
3 to state as the truth; claim: --
[ + that clause ] I contend that a novel should tell a story and tell it well.
Serious tensions arose as older and newer groups (the latter representing entrepreneurs and the professional middle classes) contended for political and economic power.
They present evidence from neural network modeling, contending that cognitive neuroscience has no definitive answers.
The author wishes to connect political economy and environmental change and contends that gender is the factor that links them.
Now the individual's new commitment to the true faith contended with the ancient loyalties of the subject to one's liege lord.
He opts out of judging contending estimates ; he is, after all, a generalist.
Within this political system, various world views contended with one another and periods marked by the domination of changing substructures followed one another.
Discussions are civilized affairs: verbal interchanges between contending parties reveal that a mistake has been made that needs to be corrected.
In practice, all kinds of balances were struck between these contending factors, but verbal explanations have been inadequate.
