duel
noun
[ ˈdjuːəl ]
• a contest with deadly weapons arranged between two people in order to settle a point of honour.
• "twice he had seriously wounded men in duels"
Similar:
affair of honour,
mano-a-mano,
single combat,
fight,
battle,
clash,
encounter,
confrontation,
head-to-head,
face-off,
shoot-out,
field meeting,
duello,
judicial duel,
rencounter,
meeting,
monomachy,
duel
verb
• fight a duel or duels.
• "shall we duel over this?"
Origin:
late 15th century: from Latin duellum, archaic and literary form of bellum ‘war’, used in medieval Latin with the meaning ‘combat between two persons’, partly influenced by dualis ‘of two’. The original sense was ‘single combat used to decide a judicial dispute’; the sense ‘contest to decide a point of honour’ dates from the early 17th century.
