contesting

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of contest

noun

1. The act of one who contests something; a disputation.

   “With regard to these disputes, doubts, and contestings, of the early and the later times of the Republic, I may be allowed to note this: that we may easily wonder how they could have been raised by persons not foreign to the city, but who belonged to those same families the members of which formed part of the government of the Republic.”