A contest is a dispute, a fight, a brawl, an argument, or a debate. The term comes from the verb contend (to battle, argue, fight). For example: “Last night, in the bar, there was a contest between two men for political reasons”, “The manager said that he will not tolerate another contest between employees”, “The Mexican Víctor Ramos del Puente was the winner of the contest and stayed with the world title ”.
Specifically, we can clarify that the term in question comes, etymologically speaking, from Latin and more precisely from the Latin verb “contendere”. This is made up of the prefix “con-”, which is synonymous with “jointly”, and by “shop”, which can be translated as “go to”.
Starting from that meaning, we would have to state that conflict is also synonymous with battle or war. Hence, throughout history it has been used on many occasions to refer to the harsh military confrontations that have taken place both within nations, between two sides, and between states.
Thus, for example, within the Spanish War of Independence, the Valdepeñas war should be highlighted, which took place on June 6, 1808 and which resulted in an uprising of the Castilian-Manchego people that gives its name to that against the French troops.
The concept is often used in the field of sport to name the sessions of the disciplines that involve some type of physical confrontation, such as boxing, judo or fencing. Each contest produces a result (victory for one athlete and defeat for another, or a tie) according to the performance of the participants.
In boxing, the result of the contest can be produced by knock out or knockout (when one of the athletes fails to get up before a specific period of time due to the damage that his rival has inflicted on him), technical knockout (if the referee considers that the fighter can no longer continue in the contest or if the participant falls three times in the same round) or points (a jury establishes a score for each boxer according to the number of blows he delivered in the fight).
The notion of contest can also be used in a symbolic sense to refer to any sporting confrontation : “FC Barcelona beat Real Madrid 1-0 in the fourth contest between the two teams in the last month”, “Cerro Porteño was victorious of the contest and returned with a valuable victory to Paraguay ”.
In addition to all the above, we would also have to emphasize that in the Spanish region of Extremadura there is a district that receives the name of San Benito de la Conteienda. It belongs to the municipality of Olivenza, has a total of 566 inhabitants and is located about 220 meters above sea level.
Contest, in another context, can be used to name the debate or discussion : “The mayor preferred not to get involved in the contest and assured that he respects the opinions of the opponents. “
Finally, it must be emphasized that there is also what is known as a jurisdiction contest. It is a term used within the scope of Law and Justice, which is used to refer to the conflict that, in terms of jurisdiction, is established with regard to competences on a specific subject.