agonisticaladj.

1643 H. Hammond Script. Plea for Magistrates 21 An agonisticall word to run for it as for a prize.

1659 E. Reynolds Substance Two Serm. 5 An agonisticall or athleicall [sic] Rule, wherein was drawn a white line by which the running of the horses was to be guided.

1688 P. Pett Happy Future State of Eng. 203 The old Agonistical Games were among the Græcians and Romans, instituted in honour of their Gods.

a1714 F. Brokesby Life H. Dodwell (1715) xiii. 105 The Time of the Martydom of particular Persons, which was often at Agonistical Solemnities, and great Festivities.

1725 A. Blackwall Sacred Classics I. ii. v. 286 To say nothing of the beautiful metaphors and noble agonistical terms.

1788 R. Holmes Four Tracts 270 Human life is a state of suffering, and in the language of the New Testament it is called a warfare, a fight, and referred to by many other agonistical allusions.

1841 R. W. Hamilton Nugæ Lit. 54 Perhaps the identity of these agonistical rules [for the games of Iphitus] will be doubted from the difference of the assigned rewards.

1885 W. K. Parker Mammalian Descent iv. 91 In the countless ages during which this agonistical wrestling for life has gone on, changes [in animal forms] have taken place that we are only slowly beginning to conceive of.

1953 Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc. 43 879/2 For Isocrates and the men of his time the Battle of Marathon and the defense of Thermopylae were agonistical achievements, proving that Athens and Sparta were worthy of hegemony.

2009 E. Thalheimer Cycling in Italy (ed. 2) 34 In 1884, hardened speedsters and racers—those practicing ciclismo agonistico (agonistical or athletic cycling)—rallied around the Unione Velocipedistica Italiana (UVI; Italian Velocipedallers Union).

a1652 J. Smith Select Disc. (1660) i. ii. 16 With a strugling, Agonistical, and contentious Reason.

1749 C. Middleton Free Inq. Miraculous Powers Index sig. Gg2^v/2 Distinguishes between St Jerom's dogmatical, and his agonistical style.

1840 H. Rogers Ess. II. v. 240 Aristotle has happily and aptly called the ‘agonistical’ or ‘wrestling’ style, that style by which a speaker earnestly strives to make a present audience see and feel what he wishes them to see and feel.

1912 R. A. Pryor Ess. & Addr. vi. 113 The characteristic qualities of oral eloquence, especially at the bar, are dictated by its end and occasion, namely, to sweep along the judgments and the feelings toward a definite conclusion; and hence that 'agonistical' style.

1991 P. Carravetta Pref. to Diaphora i. i. 69 The characters are a 'Wanderer,'..and his Shadow, who makes a pitch for a non-agonistical rhetoric of dialogue.