Obs. Also 4 strijft, 7 strifte. [f. STRIVE v. + -T3 a, after drift, thrift, etc.
In the first quot. the true reading is prob. þrift, but the erroneous reading perh. indicates that the word was in existence at the date of the Göttingen MS.]
The action of striving; an instance of this; also, contention, strife.
The word seems to have survived to some extent in the traditional religious phraseology of the Society of Friends; the use of it in the Epistle of 1893 (see quot. below) gave rise to much discussion in the Society.
[a. 1300–1400. Cursor M., 4439 (Gött.). He ferd ay wid sua mekil strijft [Cott. thrift] Þat all was done as he wald scift.]
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., v. 50. This same strift for these Masteries, and for rewards of learning, is the most commendable play. Ibid., xiv. 195. This exercise is … a stirrer vp of inuention and of good wits to strift and emulation.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 195. Hippocrates saith, that the onely cause of the strifte of the Infant in the byrth is the want of Nourishment.
1619. W. Whately, God’s Husb., I. (1622), 112. Hee is busie in labouring to obey, and a man that liues with him, may euen perceiue in him … a strift this way.
a. 1656. Ussher, Ann. (1658), 868. Exhibiting shews in the theatre, all kinds of musicall ostentations or strifts, and other variety of pleasures.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 119. So neither has the first spring of motion any thing of onwardness or stirring, but only a pend or earnest strift fromwards, which we call springsomness or bearing. Ibid., 124. The spring or strift to stir.
1710. Prideaux, Orig. Tithes, v. 276. Those [laws] … which they would never have made that strift for … had they been put in Execution upon them. Ibid., 281. In the Reigns of King Stephen … and King John when the greatest strift was about these Laws.
1815. J. J. Gurney, in Brathwaite, Mem. (1854), I. 107. Overcome by a violent apoplectic attack, and in the strift of death. Ibid. (1828), 374. I think there is good reason to suppose a period of some strift and considerable loss to be at hand.
1845. Mrs. Eliz. Fry, in Fry & Cresswell, Mem. (1847), II. 518 [Her dying words]. Pray for me—It is a strift, but I am safe.
1893. Epistle Yearly Meeting Soc. Friends, 2. Take comfort from the thought that others have passed through as great a strift, and have come forth into peace and happy trustfulness.
