contradictious

English

Adjective

contradictious (comparative more contradictious, superlative most contradictious)

1. (obsolete) Filled with contradictions; inconsistent.
   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 89:

     The police prosecutor hammered at him and the bench had a go at him, and they commanded from him such a madhouse particularity between the distinctions of looking and seeing that Bradly was reduced to imbecility, and so contradictious were his mutterings that he was openly suspected of trying to shield that wretched tramp, whom Bradly would have gladly seen sunk in the bottomless pit reserved for snoopers.

2. (obsolete) Inclined to contradict or cavil.
   • 1885–1886, Henry James, The Bostonians […], London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 16 February 1886, →OCLC:

     If he had taken a contradictious tone on purpose to draw Mrs. Luna out, he could not have elicited more of the information he desired.

Derived terms

• contradictiously
• contradictiousness

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “contradictious”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)