turf war

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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The phrase may have originated as a reference to the game of American football where two teams confront each other on a field of grass or turf.(Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)

Pronunciation

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Noun

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turf war (plural turf wars)

  1. A dispute over territory between rival gangs.
  2. (idiomatic) A fight or confrontation between two divisions or parties for access to resources or capital.
    • 2014 July 18, Thomas Christie, Notional Identities: Ideology, Genre and National Identity in Popular Scottish Fiction Since the Seventies[1], Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 202:
      It's a fascinating distinction, and one that also has the neat effect of moving the debate on from the contentious territory of the SF/litfic turfwar into that of value-neutral literary theory.