Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Given to or characterized by disputatious, often specious argument.
- n. One given to or expert in dispute or argument.
- n. The art or practice of disputation and polemics.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to disputation or controversy; controversial; disputatious; captious.
- n. One given to disputation; a controversialist.
- n. An art of logical criticism practised by the Megarics and other ancient philosophers. It has the appearance of mere captiousness and quibbling, but had a serious motive.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of something or someone provoking strife, controversy or discord.
- n. One who makes specious arguments; one who is is disputatious.
- n. A type of dialogue or argument where the participants do not have any reasonable goal. The aim is to argue for the sake of conflict, and often to see who can yell the loudest.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Controversial.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a person who disputes; who is good at or enjoys controversy
- adj. given to disputation for its own sake and often employing specious arguments
- n. the art of logical disputation (especially if specious)
Etymologies
- Greek eristikos, from erizein, to wrangle, quarrel, from eris, erid-, strife.
Examples
“Structurally defined, eristic is a zero-sum game, as is debating.”
Justin Raimondo vs. Christopher Hitchens on al-Jazeera « Antiwar.com Blog
“eristic" -- into an argument for its own sake; or sinks into logomachy,”
“I said I was going to write about the use of the word "eristic," and the reason I wanted a whole separate post about the use of the word in the Mattathias Schwartz article discussed in the previous post is that I found this 1986 article — "I Am Lapidary But Not Eristic When I Use Big Words" — by William F. Buckley Jr.”
“If it was eristic to use "eristic," did Schwartz mean to offer word mavens a little inside joke, or — more amusingly — did he mean to send a secret signal to Buckley fans?”
“Instead, I will use the eristic technique of posing questions and “demanding” that my interlocutors answer them.”
“But do expect another burst of eristic libertarian-Republican spin.”
Matthew Yglesias » You Can’t Create Jobs by “Focusing” on the Economy
“Interestingly, this was one of the eristic methods used by the paid counterbloggers of the Radical Right during the 2004-2005 time frame.”
“That is the heart of the distinction between eristic and dialectic.”
Justin Raimondo vs. Christopher Hitchens on al-Jazeera « Antiwar.com Blog
“Debating is a form of eristic, thus a variety of sophistry.”
Justin Raimondo vs. Christopher Hitchens on al-Jazeera « Antiwar.com Blog
“The tragedy and scandal of American legal education is that it tutors idealistic law students to become sophistical, eristic war-makers through the study of appellate litigation for that small portion of matters that will bring them to court, instead of relying on a case method instructing them on how to reconcile opposing viewpoints and settle disputes without recourse to litigation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘eristic’.
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On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 315 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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theyearofglad's list
Awesome words.
palimpsest, portmanteau, prolix, sycophant, eschew, revenant, haecceity, velleity, equipoise, caesura, soteriology, inchoate and 23 more...
knitandpurl "But whatever clever eristic moves you make, there's a problem on the horizon—extreme academe is heading our way." "Will the Book Survive Generation Text?" by Carlin Romano, in The Chronicle Review Sep 3, 2010
myth I Am Lapidary But Not Eristic When I Use Big Words Feb 16, 2009
tbtabby Comes from Eris, the goddess of discord? Jan 25, 2009
tonya Hey, that's the same article that brought me here to this word! :) Dec 19, 2008
john Does free speech tend to move toward the truth or away from it? When does it evolve into a better collective understanding? When does it collapse into the Babel of trolling, the pointless and eristic game of talking the other guy into crying “uncle�??
The New York Times, The Trolls Among Us, by Mattathias Schwartz, August 3, 2008 Aug 1, 2008