Infight
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An internal battle; a fight with allies or other members of the same group.
"The power struggle to establish Kim Il Sung as the sole leader in North Korea took almost a decade, entailing a series of bitter factional infights."
- 1 To fight with allies or other members of the same group. intransitive
"While Kennedy infought to trim outlays to match resources, critics claimed that the era of the big eleemosynaries had come to an end."
- 2 To box while extremely close to an opponent
"Be prepared to slip and duck his jab to infight or to counter with a quick punch to the head or body."
Example
More examples"While Kennedy infought to trim outlays to match resources, critics claimed that the era of the big eleemosynaries had come to an end."
Etymology
Apparently a back-formation from infighting, perhaps continuing Middle English infighten (“to attack”), from Old English infiht, infeoht (“an attack made upon a person by another in the same house or between members of a household”), equivalent to in- + fight. Compare Middle English infiht (“an internal fight, a brawl within a household”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.