contest vs strife

contest

noun
  • Struggle for superiority; combat. 

  • Controversy; debate. 

  • A competition. 

verb
  • To strive earnestly to hold or maintain; to struggle to defend. 

  • To call into question; to oppose. 

  • To make a subject of litigation; to defend, as a suit; to dispute or resist, as a claim, by course of law. 

  • To contend. 

strife

noun
  • Exertion or contention for superiority, either by physical or intellectual means. 

  • A trouble of any kind. 

  • Striving; earnest endeavor; hard work. 

  • Bitter conflict, sometimes violent. 

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