tourney vs contest

tourney and contest both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
tourney	Yes	No	Yes	No
contest	Yes	No	Yes	No

As nouns, contest is a hypernym of tourney; that is, contest is a word with a broader meaning than tourney:

tourney: a sporting competition in which contestants play a series of games to decide the winner
contest: an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants

Other hypernyms of tourney include competition.

tourney (noun)	contest (noun)
a sporting competition in which contestants play a series of games to decide the winner	a struggle between rivals
	an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants

tourney (verb)	contest (verb)
engage in a tourney	to make the subject of dispute, contention, or litigation