battle vs contend

battle

verb
  • To fight or struggle; to enter into a battle with. 

  • To render (land, soil, etc.) fertile or fruitful. 

  • To feed or nourish (someone or something). 

  • To join in battle; to contend in fight 

adj
  • Improving; nutritious; fattening. 

  • Fertile; fruitful. 

noun
  • A contest, a struggle. 

  • A general action, fight, or encounter, in which all the divisions of an army are or may be engaged; a combat, an engagement. 

  • battle buddy 

contend

verb
  • To struggle or exert oneself to obtain or retain possession of, or to defend. 

  • To be in opposition; to contest; to dispute; to vie; to quarrel; to fight. 

  • To be in debate; to engage in discussion; to dispute; to argue. 

  • To believe (something is reasonable) and argue (for it); to advocate. 

  • contend with: To try to cope with a difficulty or problem. 

How often have the words battle and contend occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )