controversial
/kɒntrəˈvəːʃ(ə)l
/adjective
Giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement: years of wrangling over a controversial bypass...
- Pay hikes awarded to council bosses mirror the highly controversial rises in council tax.
- Ian Waugh looks at the rise of one of the country's most controversial political figures.
- The debate over the use of cannabis in medicine is controversial and emotive.
Synonyms
contentious, disputed, contended, at issue, moot, disputable, debatable, arguable, vexed, open to discussion/question, under discussion;
tendentious;
emotive, sensitive, delicate, difficult, awkward, problematic
rare controvertible
Derivatives
controversialist
/ noun ...- Yet neither public policymakers nor the controversialists who harass them can reasonably expect to enter a new year without making some kind of assessment of what the next 12 months may hold.
- There is something about the Hitchens family that breeds controversialists with deft pens.
- Of course I'm a professional controversialist but, once my copy is filed, I'm invariably the person at any gathering murmuring, ‘Oh, let's just agree to disagree!’
controversiality
Origin
Late 16th century: from late Latin controversialis, from controversia (see controversy).