tongue-fence

Utterance there is not; nay, there is a certain grinning play of tongue-fence, and make-believe of utterance, considerably worse than none.

Paras. 1-24 1909

Dr. Buckland, a much greater master of tongue-fence than Mr. Stephenson, completely silenced him.

Lives of the Engineers The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson Samuel Smiles 1858

In the midst of which tongue-fence in came the Rose of Torridge, looking as beautiful as usual; and hearing what they were upon, added, artlessly enough, her questions to her father's: to her Don Guzman could not but answer; and without revealing any very important commercial secrets, gave his host and his host's daughter a very amusing evening.

Westward Ho!, or, the voyages and adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the county of Devon, in the reign of her most glorious majesty Queen Elizabeth Charles Kingsley 1847

Patriot-Constitutional feeling; these are qualities: but free utterance, mastership in tongue-fence; this is the quality of qualities.

The French Revolution Thomas Carlyle 1838

Poor wretches, their industry is mob-worship, place-worship, parliamentary intrigue, and the multiplex art of tongue-fence: flung into that bad element, there they swim for decades long, throttling and wrestling one another according to their strength, -- and the toughest or luckiest gets to land, and becomes

Latter-Day Pamphlets Thomas Carlyle 1838

In the midst of which tongue-fence in came the Rose of Torridge, looking as beautiful as usual; and hearing what they were upon, added, artlessly enough, her questions to her father’s: to her Don Guzman could not but answer; and without revealing any very important commercial secrets, gave his host and his host’s daughter a very amusing evening.

Westward Ho! 2007