tug 成语

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tug-of-war

a contest in which two sides try to defeat each other, a struggle The two countries have been in a tug-of-war over the territory for many years.

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Tug at the heartstrings

f something tugs at the heartstrings, it makes you feel sad or sympathetic towards it.

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tug-of-war|tug|war

n. 1. A game in which two teams pull on opposite ends of a rope, trying to pull the other team over a line marked on the ground. The tug-of-war ended when both teams tumbled in a heap. 2. A contest in which two sides try to defeat each other; struggle. A tug-of-war developed between the boys who wanted to go fishing and those who wanted to go hiking. Betty felt a tug-of-war between her wish to go to the movies and her realizing she had to do her homework. The tug of war between the union men and management ended in a long strike.

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tug of war

tug of war
A struggle for supremacy, as in There's a constant political tug of war between those who favor giving more power to the states and those who want a strong federal government. Although there is an athletic contest also so named, in which participants holding either end of a rope try to pull each other across a dividing line, the present usage, first recorded in 1677, predates it by about two centuries. The noun tug itself means “a strenuous contest between two sides,” and war refers to fighting, either physical or figurative.