Compete

kəmˈpiːt

verb

to strive against or oppose in contest

The word 'compete' comes from the Latin word 'competere', which means 'strive together'. It is often used in the context of sports, business, or any situation where individuals or groups are vying for success or superiority.

The Cosmos had one of its feature writers compose a weirdie about a world consisting of beings of pure mind – the Second Foundation, you see – who had developed mental force to energies large enough to compete with any known to physical science.

Asimov, Isaac

Foundation 3 - Second Foundation

Galyeon of Cuy, Bethany Fair-fingers, Aemon Costayne, Alaric of Eysen, Hamish the Harper, Collio Quaynis, and Orland of Oldtown will compete for a gilded lute with silver strings… yet unaccountably, no invitation has been forthcoming for one who is master of them all.” “Let me guess.

George R. R. Martin

A Storm of Swords

but — well — you know, Ron’s got all those brothers to compete against at home, and you’re his best friend, and you’re really famous — he’s always shunted to one side whenever people see you, and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it, but I suppose this is just one time too many. . .

J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

But let us come to Commodus, to whom it should have been very easy to hold the empire, for, being the son of Marcus, he had inherited it, and he had only to follow in the footsteps of his father to please his people and soldiers; but, being by nature cruel and brutal, he gave himself up to amusing the soldiers and corrupting them, so that he might indulge his rapacity upon the people; on the other hand, not maintaining his dignity, often descending to the theatre to compete with gladiators, and doing other vile things, little worthy of the imperial majesty, he fell into contempt with the soldiers, and being hated by one party and despised by the other, he was conspired against and was killed.

Niccolò Machiavelli

The Prince

He was like a wounded animal in the forest; he was forced to compete with his enemies upon unequal terms.

Upton Sinclair

The Jungle

As Balazar had said on more than one occasion, you couldn't beat the bastards unless you could compete with the bastards—unless you could match their equipment.

Stephen King

The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, Book 2)

He had expected to compete with Marcial and the other stars of the decadence of bullfighting, and he knew that the sincerity of his own bullfighting would be so set off by the false aesthetics of the bullfighters of the decadent period that he would only have to be in the ring.

Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises

"He should never have been allowed to compete.

George R.R. Martin

The Tales of Dunk & Egg

Still, in spite of all, you must admit that this Count of Monte Cristo is a most singular personage.” “He is a philanthropist,” answered the other; “and no doubt his motive in visiting Paris is to compete for the Monthyon prize, given, as you are aware, to whoever shall be proved to have most materially advanced the interests of virtue and humanity.

Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo

There was some talk about getting up their own sandlot team this year to compete in the informal city league; there were dads enough willing to shlepp them around to games.

King, Stephen

Apt Pupil

Peter did not compete.

J. M. Barrie

Peter and Wendy

She would have to compete with Jason’s past, and they might not even survive their war against the giants.

Rick Riordan

The Lost Hero

15 The pure contralto sings in the organ loft, The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready, The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, The deacons are ordain’d with cross’d hands at the altar, The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and looks at the oats and rye, The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm’d case, (He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother’s bed-room;) The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript; The malform’d limbs are tied to the surgeon’s table, What is removed drops horribly in a pail; The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove, The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass, The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do not know him;) The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race, The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs, Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece; The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee, As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle, The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other, The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof’d garret and harks to the musical rain, The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron, The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm’d cloth is offering moccasins and bead-bags for sale, The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent sideways, As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for the shore-going passengers, The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots, The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne her first child, The clean-hair’d Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill, The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter’s lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering with blue and gold, The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread, The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him, The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions, The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the white sails sparkle!)

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass

It doesn't matter because nothing can compete with the beauty of the couple.

Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay

Tolkien set to work on his first revision of the text so that a newly revised and authorized edition could successfully compete on the American market.

J. R. R. Tolkien

The Fellowship of the Ring

To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?

W. B. Yeats

Poetry

This long appeared to me a great difficulty: but it arises in chief part from the deeply-seated error of considering the physical conditions of a country as the most important; whereas it cannot be disputed that the nature of the other species with which each has to compete, is at least as important, and generally a far more important element of success.

Charles Darwin

The Origin of Species

How could I compete for Tyler’s attention.

Palahniuk, Chuck

Fight Club

Theology and medicine may have been the strong points of the university, but the town itself seems to have inclined rather to the humanities and light literature, and as a producer of books Alcalá was already beginning to compete with the older presses of Toledo, Burgos, Salamanca and Seville.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Don Quixote

The East India Company opposed the bill on the ground that the bonds to be issued would compete with theirs, but their opposition was defeated by a vote of 176 to 36 in the House of Commons, Journals, vol.

Adam Smith

The Wealth of Nations