agon

noun

1. (countable)A struggle or contest; conflict; especially between the protagonist and antagonist in a literary work.

   “It was not ecological pressure or shortages of protein, as anthropologist Marvin Harris has claimed; institutionalized violence, as opposed to the stylized agons of hunters over grievances, was the shadow side of the Neolithic Revolution.”

   “One way of reading Beowulf is to think of it as three agons in the hero's life[.]”

   “The other ethical system is that of agon. Agon is a battlefield. We enter agon not to exchange, but to fight. We dream of winning but are also prepared to lose – including to lose ourselves, even in the literal sense of dying for a great cause.”

2. (countable)An intellectual conflict or apparent competition of ideas.

   “Freud's originality stemmed from his aggression and ambition in his agon with biology.”

   “The point, though, is that to fully and uncritically surrender to such agon against individuals is to invite one's own ethical degeneration; […]”

3. (countable)A contest in ancient Greece, as in athletics or music, in which prizes were awarded.
4. (uncountable)A two-player board game played on a hexagonally-tiled board, popular in Victorian times.