Definitions

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

  • noun The act or an instance of contradicting.
  • noun The state of being contradicted.
  • noun An inconsistency or discrepancy.
  • noun Inconsistency; discrepancy.
  • noun One that contains elements that oppose or conflict with one another.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An assertion of the direct opposite to what has been said or affirmed; denial; contrary declaration.
  • noun Opposition, whether by argument or conduct.
  • noun Direct, opposition or repugnancy; absolute inconsistency; specifically, the relation of two propositions which are so opposed that one must be false and one must be true.
  • noun Figuratively, a person who or a thing which is self-contradictory or inconsistent.

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

  • noun An assertion of the contrary to what has been said or affirmed; denial of the truth of a statement or assertion; contrary declaration; gainsaying.
  • noun Direct opposition or repugnancy; inconsistency; incongruity or contrariety; one who, or that which, is inconsistent.
  • noun (Logic) the axiom or law of thought that a thing cannot be and not be at the same time, or a thing must either be or not be, or the same attribute can not at the same time be affirmed and and denied of the same subject; also called the law of the excluded middle.

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

  • noun uncountable The act of contradicting.
  • noun countable A statement that contradicts itself.
  • noun countable a logical incompatibility among two or more elements or propositions
  • noun logic (countable) A proposition that is false for all values of its variables.

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

  • noun opposition between two conflicting forces or ideas
  • noun the speech act of contradicting someone
  • noun (logic) a statement that is necessarily false

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin contrādictiō, from contrādīcō ("speak against").

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