contentious
/kənˈtɛnʃəs
/adjective
1Causing or likely to cause an argument; controversial: a contentious issue...
- The most contentious issue is likely to be a provision encouraging commissioners to facilitate voluntary co-operation by witness to be heard in private.
- Of course controversies and contentious issues have emerged.
- As I stated in the opening paragraph of my article, the issue is contentious and controversial.
Synonyms
controversial, disputable, debatable, disputed, contended, open to question/debate, moot, vexed;
ambivalent, equivocal, unsure, uncertain, unresolved, undecided, unsettled, borderline
rare controvertible
1.1Involving heated argument: the socio-economic plan had been the subject of contentious debate...
- Citizenship is centred on the notion of autonomous individuals - by definition, adults - making choices about who runs the government and engaging in contentious debate.
- We're covering all sides of this very contentious debate.
- The development of regulations and guidelines for the emerging technologies has led to a contentious public debate about genetic engineering.
Synonyms
heated, vehement, fierce, violent, intense, impassioned, committed
1.2(Of a person) given to provoking argument.A small, dark, contentious people known as the Picts held sway over the islands until the eighth and ninth centuries, when Viking invaders arrived....
- I don't like breaches and I am not a particularly contentious person at all, but if my back is against the wall I can certainly muster all my inner forces.
- At about the same time, the Pentagon's exultation of a contentious personality reflected an increasingly codified belief in speed.
1.3 Law Relating to or involving differences between contending parties.It is not easy for third parties to intervene in bilateral contentious litigation....
- My Lord, you will be aware of the contentious nature of this litigation between the parties.
- They are inapplicable to orders made by a court of unlimited jurisdiction in the course of contentious litigation.
Derivatives
contentiously
/ adverb ...- The favoured date for the foundation of St Peter's is AD 627, even though one commentator contentiously describes this as ‘the stuff of legend’.
- It portrays the West falsely and contentiously.
- Or was he, more contentiously, acting as an agent for someone else?
contentiousness
/ noun ...- The contentiousness also reached Washington, where the Justice Department approved the plan although staff lawyers concluded that it diluted minority voting rights.
- The concern is not with the way scientists and geographers parcel out land in manageable pieces, although this is where the contentiousness surrounding bioregionalism resides.
- Despite the contentiousness of her vacation behavior, it is still my opinion that she should have been allowed to continue as a newscaster in Youngstown.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French contentieux, from Latin contentiosus, from content- 'striven', from the verb contendere.