Fighting
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The act or process of contending; violence or conflict. countable, uncountable
- 2 the act of fighting; any contest or struggle wordnet
- 3 A fight or battle; an occasion on which people fight countable, uncountable
"Then here the warres end, here our fightings marde, Yet by your leave Ile stand upon my Guard."
- 1 present participle and gerund of fight form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 1 Engaged in war or other conflict.
- 2 Apt to provoke a fight.
"It seems like a fighting insult, but he explains."
- 1 engaged in or ready for military or naval operations wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"They are too busy fighting against each other to care for common ideals."
Etymology
From Middle English feghtyng, fyȝtynge, fightand, feghtand, feghtande, feightand, feȝtand, viȝtinde, feihtende, from Old English feohtende, from Proto-Germanic *fehtandz, present participle of Proto-Germanic *fehtaną (“to comb, struggle, contend with”), equivalent to fight + -ing.
From Middle English fightyng, fightynge, fiȝtinge, feȝtyng, from Old English fihtung (“fighting”), equivalent to fight + -ing.
Related phrases
More for "fighting"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.