tug of war

plural tugs of war · plural tug of wars · alternative tug-of-war

1. A game or competition in which two teams pull or tug on opposite ends of a rope trying to force the other team over the line which initially marked the middle between the two teams.

   [Gordon Burn:] You told me you had tugs-of-war with your sisters over small, common-or-garden, apparently insignificant household things, things that you felt meant more to you than the others.

   2005 June 16, Rachel Whiteread, Gordon Burn, “Rachel Whiteread in conversation with Gordon Burn”, in Embankment (The Unilever Series), London: Tate Publishing, →ISBN, page 74, column 2

2. idiomaticA dispute between two parties, particularly an entrenched, back-and-forth dispute.

   To sum up, the dynamics of a "tug-of-war" between the supporters and opponents of the powerful and independent constitutional court dispel the traditional version of judicial empowerment as a struggle between “prostrong Court” reformers and antistrong Court” reactionaries.

   2008, Alexei Trochev, Judging Russia: The Role of the Constitutional Court in Russian Politics 1990-2006, →ISBN, page 72