Library / English Dictionary

CONTROVERSY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A contentious speech act; a dispute where there is strong disagreement

Example:

they were involved in a violent argument

Synonyms:

arguing; argument; contention; contestation; controversy; disceptation; disputation; tilt

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("controversy" is a kind of...):

conflict; difference; difference of opinion; dispute (a disagreement or argument about something important)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "controversy"):

argle-bargle; argy-bargy (a verbal dispute; a wrangling argument)

firestorm (an outburst of controversy)

sparring (an argument in which the participants are trying to gain some advantage)

polemic (a controversy (especially over a belief or dogma))

fight (an intense verbal dispute)

Derivation:

controversial (marked by or capable of arousing controversy)

Credits

 Context examples: 

"An excellent ruse in controversy, to reverse positions."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I told him, although it were the custom of our learned in Europe to steal inventions from each other, who had thereby at least this advantage, that it became a controversy which was the right owner; yet I would take such caution, that he should have the honour entire, without a rival.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It will start a controversy that will be worth thousands to you just in advertising.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A fierce controversy was precipitated.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Chesterton set the whole world laughing with a series of alleged non-partisan essays on the subject, and the whole affair, controversy and controversialists, was well-nigh swept into the pit by a thundering broadside from George Bernard Shaw.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)