CONTEST

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does contest mean? 

• CONTEST (noun)
  The noun CONTEST has 2 senses:

1. an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants

2. a struggle between rivals

  Familiarity information: CONTEST used as a noun is rare.

• CONTEST (verb)
  The verb CONTEST has 1 sense:

1. to make the subject of dispute, contention, or litigation

  Familiarity information: CONTEST used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONTEST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

competition; contest

Hypernyms ("contest" is a kind of...):

social event (an event characteristic of persons forming groups)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "contest"):

tournament; tourney (a sporting competition in which contestants play a series of games to decide the winner)

trial ((sports) a preliminary competition to determine qualifications)

spelldown; spelling bee; spelling contest (a contest in which you are eliminated if you fail to spell a word correctly)

race (any competition)

tournament (a series of jousts between knights contesting for a prize)

match (a formal contest in which two or more persons or teams compete)

field trial (a contest between gun dogs to determine their proficiency in pointing and retrieving)

series ((sports) several contests played successively by the same teams)

rubber (a contest consisting of a series of successive matches between the same sides)

playoff (any final competition to determine a championship)

race (a contest of speed)

dogfight (a fiercely disputed contest)

cliffhanger (a contest whose outcome is uncertain up to the very end)

chicken (a foolhardy competition; a dangerous activity that is continued until one competitor becomes afraid and stops)

championship (a competition at which a champion is chosen)

bout (a contest or fight (especially between boxers or wrestlers))

athletic competition; athletic contest; athletics (a contest between athletes)

game (a single play of a sport or other contest)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A struggle between rivals

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("contest" is a kind of...):

competition; contention; rivalry (the act of competing as for profit or a prize)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "contest"):

bidding contest (a series of competing bids)

popularity contest (competition (real or figurative) for popular support)

battle of wits (a contest in which intelligence rather than violence is used)

Derivation:

contest (to make the subject of dispute, contention, or litigation)

• CONTEST (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they contest ... he / she / it contests
Past simple: contested   
Past participle: contested   
-ing form: contesting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

To make the subject of dispute, contention, or litigation

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

contend; contest; repugn

Context example:

They contested the outcome of the race

Hypernyms (to "contest" is one way to...):

oppose (be against; express opposition to)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "contest"):

challenge; dispute; gainsay (take exception to)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Derivation:

contest (a struggle between rivals)

contestable (capable of being contested)

contestation (a contentious speech act; a dispute where there is strong disagreement)

contestee (a winner (of a race or an election etc.) whose victory is contested)

contester (someone who contests an outcome (of a race or an election etc.))

 Context examples 

But the forty dollars won in the first contest he never received.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“By Saint James of Santiago!” cried Don Pedro, with a tinge of color upon his pale cheeks, “win who will, this has been a most notable contest.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I contested myself with the fore crosstrees, some seventy feet above the deck.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Finally, however, Challenger, bent upon proving some point which Summerlee had contested, thrust his head over the rock and nearly brought destruction upon us all.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest—more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

This, then, was the arch enemy with whom my father spent his life in terrible and ceaseless contest.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An explosion of a smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more easily conceived than described.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Catherine felt that nothing could have been safer; but ashamed of an ignorance little expected, she dared no longer contest the point, nor refuse to have been as full of arch penetration and affectionate sympathy as Isabella chose to consider her.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Carl Hensman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which offered a contest for redesigning the toilet some years ago, noted the ingredients in the sprays are also found in commonly used products like — in the case of the first spray — toothpaste, and are unlikely to pollute nearby water supplies; though he also remarked that, because the spray wears off, it was unlikely to be used widely in developing countries as the researchers claim to hope.

(Materials scientists invent new coating for self-cleaning, water-efficient toilets, Wikinews)

I tell you, my friend, that if a detailed account of that silent contest could be written, it would take its place as the most brilliant bit of thrust-and-parry work in the history of detection.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)