Noun
The suspect was arrested after a tussle with a security guard.
a tussle for control of the company
The President is in for another tussle with Congress. Verb
Two players tussled for the ball.
The residents of the neighborhood tussled with city hall for years about the broken parking meters.
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Noun
The tussle the two teams engaged in over 3 hours, 18 minutes was pretty much all about all of that.—Kevin Acee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 May 2026 The odds are that many of the state-level laws would run afoul of a federal mandate, and a tsunami of legal cases would arise as a tussle between federal law and state law is undertaken.—Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 30 May 2026
Verb
The two Democrats have frequently tussled for moral high ground over their connections to industries that voters might see as unsavory.—Ben Paviour, Sacbee.com, 27 May 2026 Kevin Keegan and Arsene Wenger tussled with Sir Alex Ferguson, and in the years that followed, Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez battled in the league and in Europe.—Jordan Campbell, New York Times, 25 May 2026 See All Example Sentences for tussle
Word History
Etymology
Verb
Middle English (Scots) tussillen, frequentative of Middle English -tusen, -tousen to tousle — more at touse