strife

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Heated, often violent dissension; bitter conflict. See Synonyms at discord.
2. n. A struggle, fight, or quarrel.
3. n. Contention or competition between rivals.
4. n. Archaic Earnest endeavor or striving.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A striving or effort to do one's best; earnest attempt or endeavor.
2. n. Emulative contention or rivalry; active struggle for superiority; emulation.
3. n. Antagonistic contention; contention characterized by anger or enmity; discord; conflict; quarrel: as, strife of the elements.
4. n. Synonyms and Strife, Contention. These words agree in being very general, in having a good sense possible, and in seeming elevated or poetical when applied to the organized quarrels of war or to anything more than oral disputes. Strife is the stronger. Contention often indicates the more continued and methodical effort, and hence is more often the word for rivalry in effort to possess something. Such a rivalry, when definite in form and limited in time, is a contest: as, the contests of the Creek games. A contention that is forcible, violent, exhausting, or attended with real or figurative convulsions or contortions, is a struggle. See battle, encounter.

Wiktionary

1. n. Conflict, sometimes violent, usually brief or limited in scope.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Archaic The act of striving; earnest endeavor.
2. n. Exertion or contention for superiority; contest of emulation, either by intellectual or physical efforts.
3. n. Altercation; violent contention; fight; battle.
4. n. obsolete That which is contended against; occasion of contest.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. bitter conflict; heated often violent dissension
2. n. lack of agreement or harmony