argumentative
/ɑːɡjʊˈmɛntətɪv
/adjective
1Given to arguing: an argumentative child...
- This is not the same as being argumentative, or arguing just for the sake of arguing.
- Reasoning, Toulmin argued, was an argumentative and persuasive activity, embedded in concrete human predicaments.
- Towards the end of my little encounter with Sophie Ward we argue about whether or not she is argumentative.
Synonyms
quarrelsome, disputatious, bickering, wrangling, captious, contrary, cantankerous, contentious, litigious, dissentient, polemical;
belligerent, bellicose, combative, antagonistic, aggressive, truculent, pugnacious
rare oppugnant
2Using or characterized by systematic reasoning: the highest standards of argumentative rigour...
- I think you would have been in a much better argumentative position to come to us if you had said something at that time.
- The paper then directed all of year 10 to select one question, answer it and discuss the reasons for their answer in an argumentative essay.
- If we have spent several class periods introducing conventions of reasoned evidence in argumentative writing, we usually look for such features in student papers.
Derivatives
argumentatively
- Hill's is a thematic biography, moving emotionally as much as argumentatively.
- But this study suggests that maximizing our serotonin with tryptophan will help us behave even more dominantly and less argumentatively, which can keep us feeling confident and help us accomplish our goals.
- ‘She's the queen's daughter too,’ I added argumentatively.
argumentativeness
- Apart from the times when my argumentativeness has threatened to scupper even that.
- The author's natural argumentativeness expresses itself in a continuing debate about faith and religion, often with Bono as his sparring partner.
- His luminous intelligence and genial argumentativeness made it respectable to be a dissenter.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French argumentatif, -ive or late Latin argumentativus, from argumentari 'conduct an argument'.
- fall on deaf ears
- fall on one's sword
- fall on (or upon)
- fall on stony ground
- fallopian tube
- fall (or drop) into someone's lap
- fall (or drop, or sink, etc.) to one's knees
- fall (or get) into the wrong hands
- fall out
- fallout
- fallout shelter
- fall over oneself to do something
- fallow
- fallow deer
- fallowness
- fall prey to
- fall prey to (also be or become prey to)
- Fall River
- fall short (of)
- fall through
- fall to
- fall to pieces
- fall to someone's lot
- fall victim to
- Falmouth