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Contentious   Listen
adjective
Contentious  adj.  
1.
Fond of contention; given to angry debate; provoking dispute or contention; quarrelsome. "Despotic and contentious temper."
2.
Relating to contention or strife; involving or characterized by contention. "More cheerful, though not less contentious, regions."
3.
(Law) Contested; litigated; litigious; having power to decide controversy.
Contentious jurisdiction (Eng. Eccl. Law), jurisdiction over matters in controversy between parties, in contradistinction to voluntary jurisdiction, or that exercised upon matters not opposed or controverted.
Synonyms: Quarrelsome; pugnacious; dissentious; wrangling; litigious; perverse; peevish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contentious" Quotes from Famous Books



... the advantages of old age, if we contemplate it in another point of view; if we consider it as delivering us from the tyranny of lust and ambition; from the angry and contentious passions; from every inordinate and irrational desire; in a word, as teaching us to retire within ourselves, and look for happiness in our own bosoms. If to these moral benefits naturally resulting from length of days be added that sweet food ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... this commission, which was slightly different in character from that established in 1866, was as follows: (a) a first president of a court of appeal or a retired one, or a president of a section of the council of state or of cassation; (b) two general officers of the navy; (c) a member of the "contentious part'' of the diplomatic service; (d) two councillors of a court of appeal; (e) a captain of a port, with a commissary of the government and a secretary; five to be a quorum. There was no appeal; but ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... one you want! 'A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentions woman are alike!' I'm not contentious, Solomon!" ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... believe what we do not see, that so by the merits of that same faith we then may merit to see what we believe, and may so hold fast to it that the Equality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the Unity of the Trinity, may no longer come to us under the garb of faith, nor be the subject of contentious talk, but may rather be what we may drink in in purest and deepest contemplation amid the silence of Eternity (De Catechizandis ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... to its hand. It is not difficult to make transcendence real and to reveal to men their consummate need of it when we speak of it in the language of experience and perception. What preaching should avoid is the abstractions of an archaic system of thought with all their provocative and contentious elements, the mingled dogmatism and incompleteness which any worked-out system contains. It is so foolish in the preacher to turn himself into a lay philosopher. Let him keep his insight clear, through moral discipline keep his intuitions high, his spirit pure, and ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State; in the next book he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues ...
— The Republic • Plato

... honorable living; the thousands in our great cities who are driven into surroundings which pervert and undermine character. And worse still, the good, instead of uniting to labor for a better state of things, misunderstand and thwart one another. They divide into parties, are jealous and contentious, and waste their time and exhaust their strength in foolish and futile controversies. They are not anxious that good be done, nor asking nor caring by whom; but they seek credit for themselves, and while they seem ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... occasions for friction, especially with the civil authorities, whose rights and duties often overlapped his own. And he did not escape the danger of such bickerings with their resultant ill-feeling. There is nothing to indicate that he was contentious by nature. But he was no doubt zealous in defending the prerogatives of his office. His temper was quick and somewhat martial. "One could very well," one of his biographers declares, "envision him as a knight in full armor leading a troop in the charge." With the exception of his active ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... In the busy, contentious bustle of the competition of the day, the brain, strained too often to its utmost tension, demands the relaxation of some absorbing, pleasure-yielding hobby. Those who have tried it attest the fact that few things more completely wean the attention, for the time being, from the vexations ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell

... me nothing more. I perceive your Berlin writers and poets are a malicious, contentious set of people. I may well fear you, and shall be glad to escape unharmed. Think kindly of me, and have pity upon me; if the others are too severe, raise your dear hand and hold back the scourge that it may not fall upon poor Wolfgang Goethe. Adieu, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... especially good men, and so deceive those employed. But they do it under a pretence. As a scorner reproacheth under a pretence of sport, so they, under other pretences, of wrongs done, of the country's defence, &c. Verses 20, 24, show the way to prevent trouble and keep peace. As a contentious turbulent person would inflame a whole country and put them by the ears, so a person, though not contentious in his own nature, yet having many contentious interests following him, which he will not quit, or commit to God's providence, as our king was. O it is the destruction of a nation to have ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... our existence spots of time, That with distinct pre-eminence retain A renovating virtue, whence, depressed 210 By false opinion and contentious thought, Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight, In trivial occupations, and the round Of ordinary intercourse, our minds Are nourished and invisibly repaired; 215 A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced, That penetrates, enables ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... Tremulous flares of mist, rising around the dark hulls, become entangled in the cordage, and as if there were no other escape, resolve themselves into air. Fisher boats are bringing their owners home from night-work over in the shallows of Indjerkeui. Gulls and cormorants in contentious flocks, drive hither and thither, turning and tacking as the schools of small fish they are following turn and tack down in the warm blue-green depths to which they are native. The many wings, in quick eccentric motion, give sparkling ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... family with the Archdeacon, the strong testimony that Cushman bears against him in his Dartmouth letter of August 17, and the fact that there seems to have been early dissatisfaction with him as "governor" on the ship, a very self-sufficient, somewhat arrogant, and decidedly contentious individual. His selection as treasurer seems to have been very unfortunate, as Bradford indicates that his accounts were in unsatisfactory shape, and that he had no means of his own, while his rather surprising selection ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... herself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace to him? [11:15]but if a woman wears long hair it is her glory; for the hair is given her for a covering. [11:16]But if any one is disposed to be contentious, we have no such custom neither have the churches ...
— The New Testament • Various

... I think," growled McCoy, who was naturally contentious and quarrelsome; "don't it warm the heart and raise the spirits and ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... one by one, the titles of the books comprised in the collected edition of Luther's works published at Basel, among which were the "Commentaries on the Psalms," the "Sermon of Good Works," the "Commentary on the Lord's Prayer," and besides these, other Christian books, not of a contentious kind. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... his balking, fliest with his flight, Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls, Nor dropp'st one coronal star about thy brow Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn! Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls No damage taking from their If and How, Nor no result save ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... became more simple and plain, such as we now find it."—Blair's Rhet., p. 59. "Idleness and ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, &c."—JOHNSON: Priestley's Gram., p. 186. "Avoid questions and strife; it shows a busy and contentious disposition."—Wm. Penn. "To receive the gifts and benefits of God with thanksgiving, and witness it blessed and sanctified to us by the word and prayer, is owned by us."—Barclays Works, i, 213. "Both minister and magistrate are compelled to ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... as to waste This Life disputing upon Taste; And most—let that sad Truth be written— In this contentious Land of Britain, Where each one holds "it seems to me" Equivalent to Q. E. D., And if you dare to doubt his Word Proclaims you Blockhead and absurd. And then, too often, the Debate Is not 'twixt First and Second-rate, Some narrow Issue, where a Touch Of more or less can't matter ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... worth. For however various are the forms of civil politics, there is but one form of polity in the sciences; and that always has been and always will be popular. Now the doctrines which find most favour with the populace are those which are either contentious and pugnacious, or specious and empty; such, I say, as either entangle assent or tickle it. And therefore no doubt the greatest wits in each successive age have been forced out of their own course, men of capacity and intellect above the vulgar having been fain, for reputation's sake, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... and decisive battles, and where we all, at certain hours of the day, and with great gusto and despatch, stow a portion of victuals finally and irretrievably into the bag which contains us. And it would seem also, on a hasty view, that the attainment of as much as possible was the one goal of man's contentious life. And yet, as regards the spirit, this is but a semblance. We live in an ascending scale when we live happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series. There is always a new horizon for onward-looking men, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a drink of sovereign grace. Devis['e]d by the gods for to assuage Heart's grief, and bitter gall away to chase Which stirs up anger and contentious rage; Instead thereof sweet peace and quietage It doth establish in the troubled mind ... And such as drink, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... renamed the Kingdom of Lesotho upon independence from the UK in 1966. King MOSHOESHOE was exiled in 1990. Constitutional government was restored in 1993 after 23 years of military rule. In 1998, violent protests and a military mutiny following a contentious election prompted a brief but bloody South African military intervention. Constitutional reforms have since restored political stability; peaceful parliamentary elections were held ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... may watch him studying them conscientiously, but making just those mistakes, which a clever examination candidate would perpetrate, were he to be asked of a sudden to turn his studies to practical account. The very robustness of his sense of duty led him naturally to the two most contentious questions in the field—those which concerned the responsibility of the colonial executive government, and the place of party in dictating to the governor-general his policy and the use to be made of ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... with them to stir and toil, Nor is it discontent to keep the mind Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil[jc][316] In the hot throng, where we become the spoil Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong Midst a contentious world, striving ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... the enviable happiness of the Serbian people to have no grammar. It was hinted by some other opponents of Vuk that he might well be an Austrian agent, who, in order to disturb the people, was now raising questions of a most contentious nature, which had previously not been thought of. But when the great philologist died in 1861 in Vienna he had long been recognized as one of the most ardent patriots. His three volumes of national songs excited the enthusiasm of ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... of Hickory Sam proved the deed to the satisfaction of the manager. In every case the bank manager had full control of the disposal of the fund, and could pay it in bulk, or divide it among those who had succeeded in eliminating from a contentious world one ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... sure of it. I know him. He is obstinate and contentious. You will tell me, my dear sir, whether my authority is unassailable, until my ward is ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins

... The Apostle does not entirely forbid disputations, but such as are inordinate, and consist of contentious words rather than of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... seldom really respectable; they neither regretted their crimes, nor offered atonement. But if the prisoner was injured, the colonist was not less so. Social virtues were discouraged; all classes were contentious and overbearing: the police, ever prying into the business of life, thus intermixed with penal systems, filled the colony with exasperation, from which not even the mildest spirits could escape. He did not propose ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... acts of offence were committed in a contentious and spiteful vindication of the privileges of his manours, and a rigorous and relentless prosecution of every man that presumed to violate his game. As he happens to have no estate adjoining equal to his own, his oppressions are often borne without ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... game of secession, and the joys of independent sovereignty, State rights, etc., as Georgia has already begun to do, in nullifying the conscription law on their bogus congress. But eventually their mutual jealousies, their 'quick sense of honor,' their contentious and intestine wars (and nothing else can reasonably be looked for) will bring them under an absolute monarchy, more or less arbitrary, or under the yoke of some ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Perchance, some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... Campbell-Bannerman to Mr. Asquith had damped Liberal enthusiasm. We got solid work done for Ireland in the University Act of 1908, though Redmond would have preferred a university of the residential type, like that in which he had himself been an undergraduate. A highly contentious measure was also carried in the Land Act of 1909. But a new power was coming to the front, at once assisting and thwarting our efforts. Mr. Lloyd George put a new fighting spirit into Liberalism: but the objects which he had at heart ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... the Canadian public excitedly interested in the discussion? Not at all. Spokesmen and penmen of the two contentious factions are victimized by their own perfervid imaginations. The electorate, the masses, are not so swayed. The Canadian people, essentially British no matter what their origins, are mainly, like all English-speaking democracies, of straight, primitive, uncomplicated emotions, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... fought on the losing side in both World Wars, it fell within the Soviet sphere of influence and became a People's Republic in 1946. Communist domination ended in 1990, when Bulgaria held its first multiparty election since World War II and began the contentious process of moving toward political democracy and a market economy while combating inflation, unemployment, corruption, and crime. Today, reforms and democratization keep Bulgaria on a path toward eventual integration into NATO and the EU - with which ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... will done in public matters has been, with infinite management, and display of such good-humor as at least deserves credit, the nominal Sovereign Majesty of Poland. Anarchic Grandees have been kings over him; ambitious, contentious, unmanageable;—very fanatical too, and never persuaded that August's Apostasy was more than a sham one, not even when he made his Prince apostatize too. Their Sovereignty has been a mere peck of troubles, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... of them without any disguise, obtaining a remission of taxes, and gaining two lawsuits. In every litigation he used the Public Prosecutor's name with such good effect that the matter was carried no further, and, like all undersized men, he was contentious and litigious in business, though in the ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... shining worlds; at that illimitable expanse of silence. And I thought of those vast gaps and lapses of manless time, when all these starry hosts unrolled and marshaled themselves before the attentive eyes of God, and it had not yet entered into his heart to create that swarming, writhing, crawling, contentious mass we call humanity. And I said to myself, "Why should a God condescend to such a ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... tell him so. 'I'm upon my death-bed and my consolation is the remembrance of our mutual faith plighted to each other a short time before our quarrel. 'Twas the bit of Scotch blood in thee that brought us to contentious wrangle. I 'minded thee at the time thou wouldst grieve for thy hot words, and 'tis a balm I send thee for thy grieved heart; 'tis my baby Kate'—Baby, baby of course I thought her so and sent her to a ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... Sought the lone limits of a forest-shed. When DIOCLETIAN'S self-corrected mind [q] The imperial fasces of a world resign'd, Say why we trace the labours of his spade, In calm Salona's philosophic shade. Say, when contentious CHARLES renounc'd a throne, [r] To muse with monks unletter'd and unknown, What from his soul the parting tribute drew? What claim'd the sorrows of a last adieu? The still retreats that sooth'd his tranquil breast, Ere grandeur dazzled, and its cares oppress'd. Undamp'd by time, the ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers

... executor. For certain, he is made administrator to his own good name while he is in perfect memory, for that dies long before him; but he is so far from being at the charge of a funeral for it, that he lets it stink above-ground. In conclusion, for neighbourhood you were better dwell by a contentious lawyer. And for his death, 'tis either surfeit, the pox, or despair; for seldom such as he die of God's making, as honest men ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... compulsive, compulsory, computation, concatenate, concentric, concessive, concomitant, condign, condiment, condolence, confiscatory, confute, congeal, congenital, conglomerate, congruity, connivance, connoisseur, connubial, consensus, consistence, consort, constriction, construe, contentious, context, contiguity, contiguous, contingent, contortion, contravene, contumacious, contumacy, contumelious, convergent, conversant, convivial, correlate, corrigible, corroborate, corrosive, cosmic, covenant, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... migrations of man and beast, still the first-formed group retained coherence, retained it beyond great natural cataclysms, retained it to historic ages, to wield long the smoothed stone weapons, and, afterward, the bronze axes, and to diverge in many branches of contentious defenders and invaders, to become Iberian and Gaul and Celt and Saxon, to fight family against family, and to commingle again ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... Trojan crests to win. All this hast thou forgotten, or despis'd; And threat'nest now to wrest from me the prize I labour'd hard to win, and Greeks bestow'd. Nor does my portion ever equal thine, When on some populous town our troops have made Successful war; in the contentious fight The larger portion of the toil is mine; But when the day of distribution comes, Thine is the richest spoil; while I, forsooth, Must be too well content to bear on board Some paltry prize for all my warlike toil. To Phthia now I go; so better ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... young man, picking up the despatch-box, which he never allowed to leave his sight, and placing it on the table, "you've only to say the word, and this contentious letter is in your possession again. ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... consider whether it is not more probable that this was granted out of a particular respect, and to please Ajax, from whom this tribe received its name; for we know he could not endure to be outdone, but was easily hurried on to the greatest enormities by his contentious and passionate humor; and therefore to comply with him and afford him some comfort in his disasters, they secured him from the most vexing grievance that follows the misfortune of the conquered, by ordering that his tribe should never be ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... answered his embassy and prayer in a distant, lofty manner: "Her it would not beseem to wed any Jarl or poor creature of that kind; let him do as Gorm of Denmark, Eric of Sweden, Egbert of England, and others had done,—subdue into peace and regulation the confused, contentious bits of jarls round him, and become a king; then, perhaps, she might think of his proposal: till then, not." Harald was struck with this proud answer, which rendered Gyda tenfold more desirable to ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... list submitted. But unfortunately Annear took occasion to insinuate that the list of brands rendered had been "doctored." Uncle Lance paid little attention, though he heard, but the other visitors remonstrated with Annear. This only seemed to make him more contentious. Finally matters came to an open rupture when Annear demanded that the cordage be cut on certain bales to allow him to inspect them. Possibly he was within his rights, but on the Nueces during the seventies, to question a man's word was equivalent to calling him a liar; and liar ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... which permeated the raison d'etre of each noble lord in that great assembly. After the first wave of enthusiasm had passed, each man began to reflect that the best way, after all, for settling the contentious question of the Headship of the Republic, was to rule every one of the "magnificent six hundred" out of the running; and by taking the line of least resistance plump for the unassuming youths ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... of the people, especially of workmen and servants, have lately died in the pestilence, many, seeing the necessity of masters and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive excessive wages." A contemporary chronicler says that "laborers were so elated and contentious that they did not pay any attention to the command of the king, and if anybody wanted to hire them he was bound to pay them what they asked, and so he had his choice either to lose his harvest and crops or give in to the proud and covetous desires of ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... Havel wonhaft." They were frequently designated by the name of Lutici, {314} as appears from Adam of Bremen, Helmond, and others, and the Sclavonic word liuti signified wild, fierce, &c. Being a wild and contentious people, not easily brought under the gentle yoke of Christianity, they figure in some of the old Russian sagas, much as the Jutes do in those of Scandinavia; and it is remarkable that the names of both should have signified giants or monsters. Notker, in his Teutonic paraphrase ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various

... issue. The strength of life thus organized lies in its massiveness, in its effective plenitude. When such units wage war on one another, this strength is wasted; and the very same principle that strength shall prevail, tends to the extension of the organization until it shall embrace contentious factions. ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry

... to move a vote of thanks to the lecturer. While doing so, I shall make it my business, with infinite tact and delicacy, to throw out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of the audience and cause some of them to desire to go more deeply into the matter. Nothing contentious, you understand, but only an indication that there are greater deeps beyond. I shall hold myself strongly in leash, and see whether by this self-restraint I attain a more ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... every allowance for the high colours with which a tale that has grown stale is apt to be daubed, I am forced to admit the inference that a mean, sordid, contentious woman probably did as much as was in her power to harass and fret one of the best men in Germany, or in the world. Luckily for himself, Albrecht was a severe student, had much engrossing work which carried him abroad, and travelled once at least ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... dispute the rule of his rival, he served out cartridges freely, and decided to discuss the matter with the Governor. He left most of his men at some distance, and presented himself attended by only a few. The Prince informed him of the Shah's orders, and after some contentious talk, he held out the royal firman for him or any of those with him to read. On one of the elders moving forward to take the paper, Jehan Shah suddenly motioned them all back with his hands, and the Prince, taking ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... other streams as it goes through wide stretches of country to the sea, it receives greater and more numerous impurities the farther it gets from its source, until, at last, what was, in its rise, a gentle rilling through snows and over whitest stones, roars into the ocean a muddy and contentious river. Men soon long to touch and taste all that they see; savage-like, him whom to-day they deem a god and worship, they on the morrow get an appetite for and kill, to eat and barter. And thus art is degraded, made a thing of carnal ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... beasts, worse than the Huns, Or Ostrogoths, forerunners of baboons: Cursed snakes, dissembled varlets, seeming sancts, Slipshod caffards, beggars pretending wants, Fat chuffcats, smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls, Out-strouting cluster-fists, contentious bulls, Fomenters of divisions and debates, Elsewhere, not here, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... show off in company, like the doctors that perform wonderful cures in the theatres as an advertisement.[469] And independently of the insult, which ought not to be an element in any cure, we must remember that vice is contentious and obstinate. For it is not merely "love," as Euripides says, that "if checked becomes more vehement," but an unsparing rebuke before many people makes every infirmity and vice more impudent. As then Plato[470] ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... could help it? There lives not such a fellow by bread as that old Lewis Baboon: he is the most cheating, contentious rogue upon the face of the earth. You must know, one day, as Nic. Frog and I were over a bottle making up an old quarrel, the old fellow would needs have us drink a bottle of his champagne, and so one after another, till my friend Nic. and I, not being ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... unwilling to be instructed, who himself knows best in all things, who yields to no one and calls good whatever harmonizes with his ideas. The Christian should be more willing to make concession in temporal affairs. Let him not be contentious, but rather yielding, since the Word of God and faith are not involved, it being only a question of personal honor, of friends and of ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... like a drone, an old man not devout, Youth disobedient, rich men that are charity without, A shameless woman, vicious lords, a poor man proudly stout, Contentious Christians, pastors that their functions do neglect, A wicked king, no discipline, no laws men to direct, Are twelve the foulest faults that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various

... the sagacity of M. Neckar, that the mode of 1614 would answer neither the purpose of the then government nor of the nation. As matters were at that time circumstanced it would have been too contentious to agree upon anything. The debates would have been endless upon privileges and exemptions, in which neither the wants of the Government nor the wishes of the nation for a Constitution would have been attended to. But as he did not choose ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... It was a little improvement, though nothing to brag of. What fitful zephyrs there might be, caused no doubt by the rapid passage to and fro on the roof above and fence-tops below of vagrant felines on Cupid's contentious battles bent, to the disturbance of the still air, soughed softly through the meshes of my hammock and gave some measure of relief, grateful enough for which I ceased the perfervid language I had been ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... the irrevocable oath he swore, The immortal seats should ne'er behold her more; And whirled her headlong down, forever driven From bright Olympus and the starry heaven: Thence on the nether world the fury fell, Ordained with man's contentious race to dwell. Full oft the god his son's hard toils bemoaned, Cursed the dire folly, and in secret groaned. —HOMER'S Iliad, B. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... the effect really was to debase and enfeeble his style, he was little on his guard against those more serious improprieties of manner into which a great orator who undertakes to write history is in danger of falling. There is about the whole book a vehement, contentious, replying manner. Almost every argument is put in the form of an interrogation, an ejaculation, or a sarcasm. The writer seems to be addressing himself to some imaginary audience, to be tearing in pieces a defence of the Stuarts which has just been pronounced by ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of them. Our program is never to oppress, but always to assist. But while we do justice to others, we must require that justice be done to us. With us a treaty of peace means peace, and a treaty of amity means amity. We have made great contributions to the settlement of contentious differences in both Europe and Asia. But there is a very definite point beyond which we can not go. We can only help those who help themselves. Mindful of these limitations, the one great duty that stands out requires us to use our enormous ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... knew better than any one—was Gabriel Nash, who lacked no leisure for hatefully haunting Balaklava Place, or in other words appeared to enjoy the same command of his time as Peter Sherringham. The pilgrim from Paris regarded him with mingled feelings, for he had not forgotten the contentious character of their first meeting or the degree to which he had been moved to urge upon Nick Dormer's consideration that his talkative friend was probably one of the most eminent of asses. This personage turned up now as an admirer of the charming creature he had scoffed at, and there was much to ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... a line now existing went before Parliament with eighteen competitors, each party relying on the wisdom of Parliament to allow their bill at least to pass a second reading! Nineteen different parties condemned to one scene of contentious litigation! They each and all had to pay not only the costs of promoting their own line, but also the costs of opposing eighteen other bills. And yet conscious as government must have been of this fact, Parliament deliberately abandoned the only step it ever took on ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... thimblerig of life, the hub of a universe which, to the approbation of the majority they represented, they were fast making uninhabitable. It did not even seem of any use to help one's neighbors; all efforts at relief just gilded the pill and encouraged our stubbornly contentious leaders to plunge us all into fresh miseries. So I was searching right and left for something to believe in, willing to accept even Rupert K. Vaness and his basking philosophy. But could a man bask his life right out? Could just looking at fine pictures, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... self-defence, and for watching and taking advantage of any public movement for overturning the present despotism, and recovering our liberties, civil and religious. We require to make the terms of admission strict, to guard against spies, and those who are contentious or quarrelsome. At the same time they declare the close and hallowed relations that bound them to all the true disciples of their common Lord. In a noble spirit of Christian brotherhood, they virtually proclaim, "On the communion of saints, let us impose no new restrictions. ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston

... the basis of his examination of abnormal mental states, offers a classification of types of psychopathic personalities. He distinguishes six groups: the excitable, the unstable, the psychopathic trend, the eccentric, the anti-social, and the contentious. In psychoanalysis a simpler twofold division is frequently made between the introverts, or the "introspective" and the extroverts, or the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... misfortune," he cried, "not yet so bound us together, That we have finally learned to bear and forbear one another, Though each one, it may be, do not measure his share of the labor? He that is happy, forsooth, is contentious! Will sufferings never Teach you to cease from your brawls of old between brother and brother? Grudge not one to another a place on the soil of the stranger; Rather divide what ye have, as yourselves ye would ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... struggle of individual human wills whenever he may choose to do so, he is not, like the dramatist, prohibited from representing anything else. In covering this special province, the drama is undeniably more vivid and emphatic; but many momentous phases of human experience are not contentious but contemplative; and these the novel may reveal serenely, without employment of the sound ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... you, Mr. Flint, that the spirit which prompted my visit was not a contentious one. I cannot accept the pass, simply because I do ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... that, in 1760, there were more than a hundred thousand Germans in Pennsylvania, and that on account of their importance in this State it was proposed to make German the official language, the proposition being beaten by only one vote! The article says further: "The only reason why the contentious Puritans succeeded in making English the language of the country and in impressing their character on its politics was because the German immigrants ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... this purpose steps of ascent, and at last beautifully ends in the nature of the good. Very different therefore is it from the merely logical method, which presides over the demonstrative phantasy, is of a secondary nature, and is alone pleased with contentious discussions. For the dialectic of Plato for the most part employs divisions and analyses as primary sciences, and as imitating the progression of beings from the one, and their conversion to it again. It likewise sometimes uses definitions and demonstrations, ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... plainstones forenent their houses, and to denounce, in the strictest terms, the emptying of improper utensils on the same; and this, until the people had grown into the habitude of attending to the rules, gave rise to many pleas, and contentious appeals and bickerings, before the magistrates. Among others summoned before me for default, was one Mrs Fenton, commonly called the Tappit-hen, who kept a small change-house, not of the best repute, being frequented by young men, of a station of life that gave her heart and countenance ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... all have value in their way. One that attracted our attention was a picture of "Christ disputing with the Doctors," by Albert Duerer, in which was represented the ugliest, most evil-minded, stubborn, pragmatical, and contentious old Jew that ever lived under the law of Moses; and he and the child Jesus were arguing, not only with their tongues, but making hieroglyphics, as it were, by the motion of their hands and fingers. It is a very queer, as well as a very remarkable ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to the widows; not to despise the fatherless and poor; to redeem the servants of God from necessity; to be hospitable (for in hospitality there is sometimes great fruit); not to be contentious, ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... be slack and negligent; or loose, and wanton in thy actions; nor contentious, and troublesome in thy conversation; nor to rove and wander in thy fancies and imaginations. Not basely to contract thy soul; nor boisterously to sally out with it, or furiously to launch out as it were, nor ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... separate bathing-places should not be constructed for the two sexes, if they wish to enjoy its bounty[271]. Moreover, those secret caves, the bowels of the mountains from whence it springs, have power even to judge contentious business. For if any sheep-stealer presumes to bring to it the fleece of his prey, however often he may dip it in the seething wave, he will have to boil it before he succeeds in ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... suffered the same fate as many other words in our language. It has become hackneyed and corrupted; it has taken a professional taint; it has almost become a byword. We are apt to think of the philanthropist as an excitable, contentious creature, at the mercy of every fad, an ultra-radical in politics, craving for notoriety, filled with self-confidence, and meddling with other people's business. Anthony Ashley Cooper, the greatest philanthropist ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... began to walk hastily about the Chamber, as fearlessly as he always does when he is thinking of something else, I springing up to move one or two Chairs out of his Way. Hearing some high Voices in the Offices, he presently observed, "A contentious Woman is like a continuall Dropping. Shakspeare spoke well when he said that a sweet, low Voice is an excellent Thing in Woman. I wish you good Women would recollect that one Avenue of my Senses being stopt, makes me keener to any Impression ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... to open fire on him, but at that moment our hostess appeared on the staircase, summoned evidently by our high-pitched contentious voices. She had exchanged her dinner-dress for a dark wrapper, removed her ornaments and begun to disarrange her hair, a thick tress of which escaped from the comb. She hurried down with a pale questioning face. Feeling distinctly that, for ourselves, immediate ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... during the early part of the reign of King James I, described the charlatan of that period as shameless, a mortal hater of all good men, an adept in cozening, legerdemain, conycatching,[223:1] and all other shifts and sleights; a cracking boaster, proud, insolent, a secret back-biter, a contentious wrangler, a common jester and liar, a runagate wanderer, a cogging[223:2] sychophant and covetous exactor, a wringer of his patients. In a word, a man, or rather monster, made of a mixture ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... than they had read or were likely ever to read any other work of fiction; I doubt whether the house contained a printed volume, unless its head had had in hand a law-book or so: I to some extent recover Mr. Norcom as a lawyer who had come north on important, difficult business, on contentious, precarious grounds—a large bald political-looking man, very loose and ungirt, just as his wife was a desiccated, depressed lady who mystified me by always wearing her nightcap, a feebly-frilled but tightly-tied and unmistakable ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... you well; and of late being informed, to our no little marvel and discontentation, that a great part of the youth of that our university, with contentious and factious manner daily combining together, neither regarding their duty to us their sovereign lord, nor yet conforming themselves to the opinions and orders of the virtuous, wise, sage, and profound ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... The merchant by the same manoeuvre, expected to sell more goods; and the physician was aware that it would afford him an excellent opportunity to brother and sister himself into a better practice. The lawyer expected to get large fees from avaricious and contentious church litigants. For church members will engage in lawsuits, the authority of John Wesley, and the still higher authority of St. Paul to the contrary, notwithstanding. The mechanic too, must have the patronage and influence ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... city-home, through letters from the minister and Colonel Prowley, I had been kept informed of the progress of that wild ferment going on in Foxden. At length the contentious spirit there evoked seemed ready to summon to trial all ancient and reputable things. My friends of the protesting minority were surely to be credited with good Puritan pluck; though there was also something admirable in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... otherwise they are not meet for communion with the gospel church. Carnal walking will not suit spiritual temples: for they will greatly pollute and defile them, and stain and obscure their beauty and glory. Therefore they must not be brawlers and contentious persons, covetous and worldly-minded, vain and frothy. They must not be froward and peevish, nor defraud others of their right. Nor must they neglect the worship of God in their families, nor be careless in governing and educating them in good manners, and in the things of God. They must not ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... be spent and the church reap little or no advantage. Let there be strong meat for the strong, and milk for babes. In your assemblies avoid all disputes which gender to strife, as questions about externals, and all doubtful disputations. If any come among you who will be contentious in these things, let it be declared that you have no such order, nor any of the churches of God. If any come among you with any doctrine contrary to the doctrine of Christ, you must not treat with such an one as with a brother, or enter ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... familiar with and highly influenced by Greek science. He knows the most eminent representatives of Ionian naturalism (with the exception of Democritus), and he is fond of displaying his knowledge. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that he uses it in a contentious spirit against popular belief; on the contrary, he is inclined in agreement with the old philosophers to identify the gods of popular belief with the elements. Towards sophistic he takes a similar, but less sympathetic attitude. ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann

... and Fletcher sent out. He was not a sodden imbecile, but he was ill-chosen for his office. He described the New Yorkers of that day as "divided, contentious and impoverished" and immediately began a conflict with them. His attitude may be judged from a passage in his remarks to the assembly soon afterward: "There never was an amendment desired by the council board but what ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... must continually be doing violence to my feelings,—submitting my will always to that of my superiors, never contentious, never sulky, finishing every work begun, in spite of ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.

... hateful, teasty, unpleasant. contentious, angry, 7. cruel, 8. and implacable, Morosi homines, sunt odiosi, torvi, illepidi. contentiosi, iracundi, 7. crudeles, 8. ac implacabiles, (rather Wolves and Lions, than Men) and such as fall out among themselves, hereupon ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius

... is whitish-brown, and is also marked with transverse stripes feebly defined. The bird I shot measured from the point of the beak to the end of the tail 1 foot 6-1/2 inches. Though these Gyr-Falcons live socially together, yet they are very greedy and contentious about their prey. They snap up, as food, all the offal thrown out of doors; and thus they render themselves serviceable to the inhabitants, who consequently do not destroy them. In some of the valleys of Peru, I met with these birds again, but ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... every heart. "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." Eph. 2:19. God has a household of saints here upon the earth where peace rules. A contentious, quarrelsome, divided family is no part of God's united household. One family in heaven and earth. Eph. 3:15. It is with great reluctancy that we pass by so many beautiful texts upon this subject, but we will only quote a few more lest this volume swell to too great proportions. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... speaking became more simple and plain, such as we now find them."—Blair cor. "Idleness and ignorance, if they be suffered to proceed, &c."—Johnson and Priestley cor. "Avoid questions and strife: they show a busy and contentious disposition."—Penn cor. "To receive the gifts and benefits of God with thanksgiving, and witness them blessed and sanctified to us by the word and prayer, is owned by us."—Barclay cor. "Both minister and magistrate are compelled to choose between ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... by the custom of your confession, That you never made any nuptial transgression, Since you were married to your wife, By household brawls, or contentious strife, Or otherwise, in bed or at board, Offended each other in deed or in word— Or since the parish clerk said Amen, Wish'd yourselves unmarried again; Or in a twelvemonth and a day, Repented not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various

... The author of the contentious article that appeared in Mechanical Engineering in 1942 under the title "What is Wrong with Kinematics and Mechanisms?" made several pronouncements that were questioned by various readers, but his remarks on the meagerness of the college ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson

... opinion, it is our duty, when we have the desires of the people before us, to pursue them, not in the spirit of literal obedience, which may militate with their very principle,—much less to treat them with a peevish and contentious litigation, as if we were adverse parties in a suit. It would, Sir, be most dishonorable for a faithful representative of the Commons to take advantage of any inartificial expression of the people's wishes, in order to frustrate their attainment of what they have an undoubted right to expect. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... clear in his Epistle to the Corinthians. He tells them plainly that they were yet only babes in Christ, because they were carnal and contentious (I Cor. iii. I). They were in Christ, they had been converted, but they ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... schools could not please him. That aversion to all scholasticism, which he rejected in one sweeping condemnation, struck root in his mind, which, however broad, always judged unjustly that for which it had no room. 'Those studies can make a man opinionated and contentious; can they make him wise? They exhaust the mind by a certain jejune and barren subtlety, without fertilizing or inspiring it. By their stammering and by the stains of their impure style they disfigure ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... Saint John the Baptist's Day, her power had returned to her. Count Ulrich, recognising her supernatural gifts, entreated her to employ them on behalf of himself and his friends. Being very contentious, he had become seriously involved in the schism which was then rending asunder the diocese of Treves. Two prelates were contending for the see; one, Udalric of Manderscheit, appointed by the chapter, the other Raban of Helmstat, Bishop of Speyer, appointed by the Pope.[2644] ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... perhaps prophetically shadowed forth; where the two Natural Enemies, in person, take each a Tobacco-pipe, filled with Brimstone; light the same, and smoke in one another's faces, till the weaker gives in: but from such predicted Peace-Era, what blood-filled trenches, and contentious centuries, may still ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... happened that a certain man, jealous of Pastor Hsi's success, opened a rival opium refuge in which he treated patients according to the Pastor's methods, but with medicine of his own making. The scheme was a contentious one, and the man a cause of friction and difficulty to the Christian community. It was to this Refuge that Mr. Wang, now thirty years old, poor, sad, and dispirited, came as a patient. He found here a man who, according to the established tradition of the opium refuge, ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... a captious, caviling, carping, crabbed, contentious, cantankerous chap. Hoot mon! an' why shouldna I drap into Scotch gin I choose? An' I with a Mac in ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... the other colonies, both in their ministry and civil administration, ... had lately made Acomenticus (a poor village) a corporation, and had made a taylor their mayor, and had entertained one Hull, an excommunicated person and very contentious, for their minister." Rhode Island, as a seat of separatism and heresy, was not invited and perhaps not even considered. For managing the affairs of the confederation, the main objects of which were ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... hot, contentious man, could not let his son alone. In the stable and out in the hayfield he was ever on his back, though Jamie was never the lad to cross him or to begin an argument. But his father would rage and try to shout him down—a vain thing with Jamie. For the lad, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... arose, and the men moved out into the living-room to chat on less contentious subjects. After a time the women joined them, and Grant presently found himself absorbed in conversation with the old rancher's wife. Zen seemed to pay but little attention to him, and for the first time ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... Revenue Bill was less easily disposed of. It bristled with contentious points bearing upon the most equitable ways and means of raising supplementary imposts to meet the first year's war outlays. As submitted to the House it was designed to raise a revenue of $1,800,000,000; but the barometer of the Treasury's needs kept rising ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... spiced; The stars that saw the starlike eyes of Ruth, The grave that heard the clarion call of Christ. And higher than sorrow and mirth The heavenly song of earth Sprang, in such notes as might have well sufficed To still the storms of time And sin's contentious clime With peace renewed of life reparadised: Earth, scarred not yet with temporal scars; Goddess of gods, our mother, chosen among ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... visions. We want to know more of that man than we do; but, even with the little we know of him, he stands before us as a figure second only to one in the whole history of the world. We see his zeal for God, but we never see him contentious. Though Melchisedek worshipped God under a different name, invoking Him as Eliun, the Most High, Abraham at once acknowledged in Melchisedek a worshipper and priest of the true God, or Elohim, and paid him tithes. In the very name of Elohim we seem ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... rushed by. The first and comparatively non-contentious sections of the Bill passed with a good deal of talk and delay. George spoke once or twice, without expecting to speak, instinctively pleasing Fontenoy where he could. They had now but little direct intercourse. But George ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... these rules for the government of the almshouses, as to erroneous opinions in any principle of religion, the rector of Quainton being the judge, the visiting of alehouses, the good conduct of the inmates, who were to be "no whisperers, quarrelers, evil speakers or contentious." ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... intervals of military service, he commenced advocate at the country assizes, followed his fortunes to Rome and there became a leader of the metropolitan bar. He saw gallant military service in Spain and in Greece, commanded an army, held all the curule offices of state and ended a contentious life in the Senate denouncing Carthage and the ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... originally the air, became the protecting goddess of married life; Apollo, the god of light, who shot forth his arrows, not at first identified with Helios, became the god of divination and poetry, who led the choir of the muses; the goddess of light, Athene, became the contentious goddess of wisdom; Aphrodite, born of the foam of the sea, once the symbol of the fruitful power of nature, later, encircled by the Graces, became the type of womanly beauty and charm, to which the strength of man, personified in Ares, corresponds. In like manner ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten

... house, that the total number of knights, citizens, and burgesses returned to parliament for that part of the United Kingdom called England and Wales, ought not to be diminished." This motion was designed to get rid of the bill altogether, and it produced a violent and contentious debate. Mr. Sadler, who seconded it, delivered a long, argumentative, and learned speech against the general principles of the whole plan of reform. He was followed by the chancellor of the exchequer, who ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... fatigue, and that recently after his cold there were some days when his voice was little better than a very distinct, but also a very pathetic, whisper. But there is another side. Age has mellowed his style, so that now he can speak on even the most contentious subject with a gentleness and a freedom from anything like venom—with an elevation of tone—that make it almost impossible for even his bitterest opponent to listen to him without delight and, for the moment at least, with a certain degree of assent. If anybody really wishes to ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... in liquor is an irresponsible being, and Allyne, under the polish of education and training, possessed the nature of a bully—he was tyrannical and contentious. Choosing now to assume that Carnegie's partial turning away and low-voiced conversation were intended to insult him, he straightened up, and looking fiercely across the table, with eyes already watery from ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... paper like the Beacon would want. To give it what it would want and to give it nothing else was not doubtless an inspiring, but it was a perfectly respectable task, especially for a man with an appealing bride and a contentious mother-in-law. I thought Lambert's first letters as charming as the type allowed, though I won't deny that in spite of my sense of the importance of concessions I was just a trifle disconcerted at the way he had caught the tone. The tone was of course to be caught, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... JOHN. In your contentious humours, noble lords, Peers and upholders of the English state, John silent stood, as one that did await What sentence ye determin'd for my life: But since you are agreed that I shall bear The weighty burthen of this ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... redress of grievances," in any accurate meaning of these words, but comprehends demands for an exercise by the government of its powers in furtherance of the interests and prosperity of the petitioners, and of their views on politically contentious matters. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin



Words linked to "Contentious" :   disputative, litigious, contention, controversial, combative, contentiousness



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