English

Verb

gainstrive ‎(third-person singular simple present gainstrives, present participle gainstriving, simple past gainstrived or gainstrove, past participle gainstrived or gainstriven)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To strive against; to resist, oppose. [16th century]
2. (obsolete, intransitive) To resist; to fight back. [16th century]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.7:

     For on the spoile of women he doth live, / Whose bodies chast, when ever in his powre / He may them catch unable to gainstrive, / He with his shamefull lust doth first deflowre, / And afterwardes themselves doth cruelly devoure.

Derived terms

• gainstriving

Related terms

• gainstrife