Also 8 strugle. [f. STRUGGLE v.]
1. An act of struggling; a resolute contest, whether physical or otherwise; a continued effort to resist force or free oneself from constraint; a strong effort under difficulties.
1692. Locke, Consid. Lower. Interest, 115. The usual struggle and contest, as I said before,… is between the Landed Man and the Merchant. [Cf. supra 114 This pulling and contest is usually between the Landed Man and the Merchant.]
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1727), VI. 180. Every Verse … speaking nothing but the Horrors of an hopeless Soul, and the Struggles and Agonies of one sinking under the dismal Apprehensions of the divine Wrath.
1772. Junius Lett., lxviii. 341. There was a constant struggle between the legislature and the officers of justice.
1798. T. Morton, Speed the Plough, V. i. (1800), 64. ’Tis hard for the heart to forego, without one struggle, its only hope of happiness.
1827. Scott, Highl. Widow, v. Her demand was never refused, though granted in many cases with a kind of struggle between compassion and aversion.
1833. Q. Rev., XLIX. 407. These feather-weights … sometimes ride a winning race; though if it comes to a struggle, as the term is, they are almost certain to be defeated by the experienced jockey.
1840. Hood, Up the Rhine, 217. The man … seized hold of the child’s clothes in a very rough manner. A struggle immediately took place between the officer and the woman.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. II. 159. The struggle which patriotism had for a time maintained against bigotry in the royal mind was at an end.
1867. Ruskin, Time & Tide, i. § 1. The immediate struggle between the system of co-operation and the system of mastership.
1918. Times Lit. Suppl., 28 March, 149/2. He [Zarathustra] anticipated that the final eschatologic struggle was at hand, when the sovereignty or dominion of Ahura would be established.
b. A strong effort to continue to breathe, as in the death-agony or under conditions tending to produce suffocation.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, vii. St. Aubert expired without a struggle or a sigh.
1809. Med. Jrnl., XXI. 138. This event [death] sometimes takes place … in a placid manner, without any struggle, and not unfrequently with a smile on the countenance.
1842. Lover, Handy Andy, xi. Suddenly whipping the fish over the side into the boat, he began flapping it about as if it were plunging in the death struggle.
1845. J. Coulter, Adv. in Pacific, vii. 87. [The whale] turned over in a few minutes without a struggle.
1854. Surtees, Handley Cr., i. (1901), I. 11. He died at the good old age of eighty without a groan or struggle.
1915. J. S. Haldane, in Times, 29 April, 9/6. These men were lying struggling for breath…. There was nothing to account for the blueness (cyanosis) and struggle for air, but the one fact that they were suffering from acute bronchitis.
† c. A conflict between material agents; spec. effervescence. (Cf. STRUGGLING vbl. sb. 2.) Obs.
1741. P. Shaw, trans. Boerhaave’s Chem. (ed. 2), I. 539. These salts rest after complete saturation, and then produce no struggle, upon the addition either of an alkali or an acid salt to the saturated mixture.
1796. Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 12. With magnesia it [sc. argill] can have no struggle.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 253. The earth, when dry, is a bad conductor, and will not receive the electricity from the clouds without a struggle.
d. Struggle for existence, for life: in Biology used metaphorically to describe the relation between coexisting organic species when the causes tending to the survival of one tend to the extinction of another. Also gen., an effort under difficulties to obtain the means of livelihood; a continued resistance to influences threatening destruction or extinction.
a. 1827. in J. B. Norton, Topics, (1858), 214. Madras, on the contrary, rose amidst poverty and many struggles for existence.
1832. Lyell, Princ. Geol., II. 56. In the universal struggle for existence, the right of the strongest eventually prevails; and the strength and durability of a race depends mainly on its prolificness, in which hybrids are acknowledged to be deficient.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., v. (1873), 118. In the struggle for life to which every animal is exposed, each would have a better chance of supporting itself, by less nutriment being wasted.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), IV. 406. The struggle for existence is not confined to the animals, but appears in the kingdom of thought.
2. In generalized sense: Contention, determined effort or resistance.
1706. Sir D. Hume, Diary Parl. Scot. (Bannatyne Club), 189. The Parliament … proceeded, and with very little struggle, approved Articles 9.–13.
1714. Fortescue-Aland, Fortescue’s Abs. & Lim. Mon., Pref. 28. King John, after much struggle with his Barons, swears to restore the good Laws of his Ancestors.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1768), VIII. 138. A conscience, that is upon the struggle with thee, and like a cunning wrestler watches its opportunity to give thee another fall.
1833. Ht. Martineau, Briery Creek, iv. 89. Not only of week-day labour, but of struggle for subsistence.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. VI. i. Jacobinism is in uttermost crisis and struggle.
1879. Jennie Young, Ceramic Art, 276. After fifteen or sixteen years of unheard-of struggle and misery, this indomitable genius [Palissy] produced the long-sought enamel.
1881. P. Brooks, Candle of the Lord, 353. Not till you make men … intelligent, and fond of struggle,… not till then have you relieved poverty.
1901. Watts-Dunton, Aylwin, Introd. Speculations … upon the gravest of all subjects—the subject of love at struggle with death.
