contedere

Contendere is a Latin verb of the third conjugation, most often written contendere in its infinitive form. It means to strive, to contend, to fight or dispute, and in some senses to hasten or bring about. The form contedere appears only rarely and is not standard in classical Latin; the canonical infinitive is contendere.

The standard principal parts are contendo, contendere, contendi, contentum. From contendeo, contendere comes the future and imperfect forms in various tenses; the perfect passive participle is contentus, from which the adjective contentus (content, satisfied) and the noun contentio (a striving, dispute) are derived. The noun contentio is the source of the English word contention; the adjective contentus has yielded senses tied to being satisfied or content.

Usage in Latin covers several related senses. In the sense of striving or contending, contendere takes the thing for which one contends or the adversary with whom one contends, often in expressions such as contendere pro alicui (to strive for someone or something) or contendere cum alio (to contend with someone). In the legal or rhetorical sense, causam contendere means to plead a case or argue a point. The sense of hastening toward a goal is less common in everyday classical Latin but can appear in poetry or figurative language.

Relationship to other languages and terms: contio/ contentio gave rise to the English noun contention, meaning dispute, and the adjective contentious. The participle contentus underlies the Latin adjective for “satisfied” and the related English word content, which can reflect the idea of being at rest or fulfilled.

In brief, contendere (not contedere) is the standard form; contedere is a rare variant. The core idea centers on striving, disputing, or hastening toward a result, with related nouns and adjectives forming a small but influential semantic family in Latin and its descendants.