tug of war

American  

noun

1. an athletic contest between two teams at opposite ends of a rope, each team trying to drag the other over a line.

2. a hard-fought, critical struggle for supremacy.

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tug-of-war British  

noun

1. a contest in which two people or teams pull opposite ends of a rope in an attempt to drag the opposition over a central line

2. any hard struggle, esp between two equally matched factions

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tug of war Idioms  

1. A struggle for supremacy, as in There's a constant political tug of war between those who favor giving more power to the states and those who want a strong federal government. Although there is an athletic contest also so named, in which participants holding either end of a rope try to pull each other across a dividing line, the present usage, first recorded in 1677, predates it by about two centuries. The noun tug itself means “a strenuous contest between two sides,” and war refers to fighting, either physical or figurative.

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Etymology

Origin of tug of war

1670–80 tug of war for def. 2; 1875–80 tug of war for def. 1

Example Sentences

Netflix, which wants to buy Warner’s studios and HBO Max streaming business, is in a multibillion-dollar game of tug of war with Paramount, which wants to buy the entire company.

From The Wall Street Journal

In recent weeks, oil prices have been in a tug of war between the possibility of a Russia-Ukraine peace deal and Fed rate cuts optimism, Phillip Nova analyst Priyanka Sachdeva says in a note.

From The Wall Street Journal

But it's not just about a diplomatic tug of war.

From BBC

“But people don’t want to miss out, so you have a tug of war going on.”

From The Wall Street Journal

“They shouldn’t be the rope in this tug of war game that’s going on,” said Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

From Salon