Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To act or be in violation of (a law, directive, or principle, for example); violate.
  • transitive verb To be inconsistent with; be contrary to.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To come or be in conflict with; oppose in principle or effect; impede the operation or course of.
  • To act so as to combat or violate; transgress: as, to contravene the law.
  • Synonyms To cross, run counter to, militate against, contradict, defeat, nullify, neutralize.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To meet in the way of opposition; to come into conflict with; to oppose; to contradict; to obstruct the operation of; to defeat.
  • transitive verb To violate; to nullify; to be inconsistent with.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To act contrary to an order, or fail to conform to a regulation.
  • verb transitive To deny the truth of something.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb deny the truth of
  • verb go against, as of rules and laws

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French contrevenir, from Medieval Latin contrāvenīre, to transgress, from Late Latin, to oppose : Latin contrā-, contra- + Latin venīre, to come; see gwā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin contraveniō.

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