Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To oppose, contradict, or call into question.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To fight against; oppose; resist.
- To attack; oppose, as by argument; make an assault upon.
Wiktionary
- v. To contradict or controvert; to oppose; to challenge or question the truth or validity of a given statement.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To fight against; to attack; to be in conflict with; to oppose; to resist.
WordNet 3.0
- v. challenge the accuracy, probity, or propriety of
Etymologies
- Middle English oppugnen, from Latin oppugnāre, to attack : ob-, against; see ob- + pugnāre, to fight with the fist; see peuk- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“As for those places of Scripture which oppugn it, they will have spoken ad captum vulgi, and if rightly understood, and favourably interpreted, not at all against it; and as Otho Gasman, Astrol. cap.”
“This is Naturae bellum inferre, to oppugn nature, and to make a strong body weak.”
“Galenists oppugn Paracelsus, he brags on the other side, he did more famous cures by this means, than all the Galenists in Europe, and calls himself a monarch; Galen, Hippocrates, infants, illiterate, &c.”
“Either, therefore, he who oppugns incorporeal quality seems also to oppugn unqualified matter; or separating the one from the other, he mutually parts them both.”
“Scroderus (Andrea) who, all the world knows, set himself to oppugn”
“Origen did mightily oppugn a new heresie which did springe vpp in his tyme/it was called the heresie of Helchesaites/and at lẽghth he did happily extinguishe it.”
“A skeptic can only _doubt_, never _oppugn_ the gospel.”
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, May, 1880
“But in promiscuous company no prudent man will oppugn the merits of a contemporary in his own supposed department; contenting himself with praising in his turn those whom he deems excellent.”
“To oppugn the superstitious opinions of man, is to commence hostilities with his imagination -- to attack his fancy -- to be at war with his organization -- to enter the lists with his habits, which are of themselves sufficient to identify with his existence, the most absurd, the most unfounded ideas.”
“It is extremely rare to find men, who, to an enlarged mind, extensive knowledge, great talents, join either a well regulated imagination, or the courage necessary to successfully oppugn habitual errors; triumphantly to attack those chimerical systems, with which the brain has been inoculated from the first hour of its birth.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘oppugn’.
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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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Words in which "u" is pronounced "yu"
cute, uniform, puny, municipal, butte, fume, perfume, puke, cucumber, huge, demure, cube and 56 more...
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