Gainstrife
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Contention; striving against. archaic, uncountable
"He had come to see Ralph, but my lady took him off to one of the solars, and said briskly: 'Now, I charge you, John, no prating to my lord about all this gainstrife that is sprung up over my brother Somerset's ending, for he is nigh diswitted already by the debate, and he will not for his life mell himself in it!"
Example
More examples"He had come to see Ralph, but my lady took him off to one of the solars, and said briskly: 'Now, I charge you, John, no prating to my lord about all this gainstrife that is sprung up over my brother Somerset's ending, for he is nigh diswitted already by the debate, and he will not for his life mell himself in it!"
Etymology
From gain- + strife. Compare gainstrive.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.