fight
pronunciation
How to pronounce fight in British English:
UK [faɪt]
How to pronounce fight in American English:
US [faɪt]
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- Noun:
- the act of fighting; any contest or struggle
- an intense verbal dispute
- a boxing match
- a hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war
- an aggressive willingness to compete
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- Verb:
- be engaged in a fight; carry on a fight
- fight against or resist strongly
- make a strenuous or labored effort
- exert oneself continuously, vigorously, or obtrusively to gain an end or engage in a crusade for a certain cause or person; be an advocate for
Word Origin
- fight
- fight: [OE] The deadly earnestness of fighting seems to have had its etymological origins in the rather petty act of pulling someone’s hair. Fight, together with German fechten and Dutch vechten, goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *fekhtan, which appears to come from the same ultimate source as Latin pectere ‘comb’ and Greek péko ‘comb’.The missing links in the apparently far-fetched semantic chain between ‘fighting’ and ‘combing’ are provided by such words as Spanish pelear ‘fight, quarrel’, a derivative of pelo ‘hair’, which originally meant ‘pull hair’; German raufen ‘pull out, pluck’, which when used reflexively means ‘fight’; and English tussle, which originally meant ‘pull roughly’, and may be related to tousle.
- fight (v.)
- Old English feohtan "to combat, contend with weapons, strive; attack; gain by fighting, win" (intransitive; class III strong verb; past tense feaht, past participle fohten), from Proto-Germanic *fehtan (cognates: Old High German fehtan, German fechten, Middle Dutch and Dutch vechten, Old Frisian fiuhta "to fight"), from PIE *pek- (2) "to pluck out" (wool or hair), apparently with a notion of "pulling roughly" (cognates: Greek pekein "to comb, shear," pekos "fleece, wool;" Persian pashm "wool, down," Latin pectere "to comb," Sanskrit paksman- "eyebrows, hair"). Spelling substitution of -gh- for a "hard H" sound was a Middle English scribal habit, especially before -t-. In some late Old English examples, the middle consonant was represented by a yogh. Among provincial early Modern English spellings, Wright lists faight, fate, fecht, feeght, feight, feit, feyght, feyt, feort, foight. From c. 1200 as "offer resistance, struggle;" also "to quarrel, wrangle, create a disturbance." From late 14c. as "be in conflict." Transitive use from 1690s. To fight for "contest on behalf of" is from early 14c. To fight back "resist" is recorded from 1890. Well figt þat wel fligt ("he fights well that flies fast") was a Middle English proverb.
- fight (n.)
- Old English feohte, gefeoht "a fight, combat, hostile encounter;" see fight (v.). Compare Old Frisian fiucht, Old Saxon fehta, Dutch gevecht, Old High German gifeht, German Gefecht. Meaning "power or inclination to fight" is from 1812.
Example
- 1. The fiscal crisis has exacerbated the fight .
- 2. It shows that the fight is lost .
- 3. Ansar al-sharia says it is braced for a fight .
- 4. My fight with mark didn 't end there .
- 5. But he did not want to fight .