agon

Definitions

1. A struggle or contest; conflict; especially between the protagonist and antagonist in a literary work.
   countable
2. An intellectual conflict or apparent competition of ideas.
   countable
3. A contest in ancient Greece, as in athletics or music, in which prizes were awarded.
   countable
4. A two-player board game played on a hexagonally-tiled board, popular in Victorian times.
   uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“It was not ecological pressure or shortages of protein, as anthropologist Marvin Harris has claimed; institutionalized violence, as opposed to the stylized agons of hunters over grievances, was the shadow side of the Neolithic Revolution.”

“One way of reading Beowulf is to think⟳ of it as three agons in the hero's life[.]”

“The other ethical system is that of agon. Agon is a battlefield. We enter⟳ agon not to exchange⟳, but to fight⟳. We dream⟳ of winning but are also prepared to lose⟳ – including to lose⟳ ourselves, even in the literal sense⟳ of dying for a great cause.”

“Freud's originality stemmed from his aggression and ambition in his agon with biology.”

“The point⟳, though, is that to fully and uncritically surrender⟳ to such agon against individuals is to invite⟳ one's own⟳ ethical degeneration; […]”

CEFR level