tug-of-war has definitions from the field of sport
1
[ noun ] any hard struggle between equally matched groups

Used in print

(Edward Jablonski, Harold Arlen Happy with the Blues....)

It purported to be a reasonably serious attempt at a treatment of jazz_musicians , their aims , their problems - the tug-of-war between the `` pure '' and the `` commercial '' - and seemed a promising vehicle , for the two men shared a common interest in jazz .

Related terms

conflict

2
[ noun ] (sport) a contest in which teams pull of opposite ends of a rope; the team dragged across a central line loses

Related terms

athletic_contest

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