tournament

n. series of athletic competitions or games culminating in a championship match

A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a single sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval. Some game clubs focus on preparing members for such tournaments. Chess clubs, for instance, frequently employ similar ranking systems, chess clocks, and etiquette to those used in chess tournaments.A competition involving multiple matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.
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Noun
1. a sporting competition in which contestants play a series of games to decide the winner
(synonym) tourney
(hypernym) contest, competition
(hyponym) World Cup
2. a series of jousts between knights contesting for a prize
(hypernym) contest, competition
(part-meronym) joust, tilt

(n.)
Any contest of skill in which there are many contestents for championship; as, a chess tournament.
  

(n.)
A mock fight, or warlike game, formerly in great favor, in which a number of combatants were engaged, as an exhibition of their address and bravery; hence, figuratively, a real battle.
  

The broad term describing a whole range of martial activities from the hastilude , pas d’armes , round table , pageant , emprise , and a host of others. The tournament began as a training for war, and was gradually more regulated and specialized. During the 14th century the tournament proper, the hastilude, was gradually supplanted by the jousts and foot combats described in pas d’armes and round tables. Knights would compete against one another under the watchful eyes of the heralds and ladies of the gallery , earning renown and fame while they demonstrated their prowess . See Period Tournament Formats for SCA Combat.
It is the spirit of the tournament that has given strength to the tournament companies, modern groups of re-enactors who see the tourney as a testing ground for knightly virtue. See also THE BOOK OF THE TOURNAMENT . 

Though many chroniclers attached the term ‘tourney’ to some very early endeavors,even biblical ones, the first recorded instances appear to be:

- Geoffrey of Malaterra’s account of a 1062 siege in which the participants ‘tourneyed’
- Chronicle of Tours: ‘Geoffrey de Preuilly, who invented tournaments, was killed an Angers.’ (1062)