Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A controversial argument, especially one refuting or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine.
- n. A person engaged in or inclined to controversy, argument, or refutation.
- adj. Of or relating to a controversy, argument, or refutation.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of or pertaining to controversy; controversial; disputative: as, a polemic essay or treatise; polemic divinity or theoIogy; polemic writers.
- n. A disputant; one who carries on a controversy; a controversialist; one who writes in support of an opinion or a system in opposition to another.
- n. A controversy; a controversial argument.
Wiktionary
- n. A person who writes in support of one opinion, doctrine, or system, in opposition to another; one skilled in polemics; a controversialist; a disputant.
- n. An argument or controversy.
- n. A strong verbal or written attack on someone or something.
- adj. Having the characteristics of a polemic.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to controversy; maintaining, or involving, controversy; controversial; disputative.
- adj. Engaged in, or addicted to, polemics, or to controversy; disputations.
- n. One who writes in support of one opinion, doctrine, or system, in opposition to another; one skilled in polemics; a controversialist; a disputant.
- n. A polemic argument or controversy.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or involving dispute or controversy
- n. a writer who argues in opposition to others (especially in theology)
- n. a controversy (especially over a belief or dogma)
Etymologies
- From French polémique, from Ancient Greek πολεμικός (polemikós, "of war"), from πόλεμος (pólemos, "war") (Wiktionary)
- French polémique, from Greek polemikos, hostile, from polemos, war. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Sure, you can try to be anal and disagree with my use of the term polemic, and go on and on about how you don't like someone who also used that definition to present a pretty sound model, but it's just lazy.”
“Not sure I want to trust an anti-industry polemic from a probable lefty, with a history of twisting truth (see the full Aftershocks review) as reliable fact.”
Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » The Timeless Appeal of Triumphalism
“Perhaps the entire polemic is much ado about nothing?”
“Federal Farmer says: zuch: A polemic is hardly a “formal” document.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Obama Administration to Appeal in National Day of Prayer Case
“That having been said, my justification for setting aside a message novel or a polemic is that I hate being preached at.”
“Papist," but as far as I can tell, Pise is wrong: "Romanist" appears to be a familiar term of opprobrium in English polemic by the late seventeenth century.”
“I couldn't tell because of the handle reference to Edmund Burke, whose anti-French Revolution and pro-American revolution polemic is often a heroic and mythological epic to conservatives.”
“[Sidenote: Methods of argument] Even when he argued against an opinion he called his polemic a "Conversation" -- for that is the true meaning of the word Diatribe.”
“If Thomas were not a Justice, his book would be called a polemic, or a screed.”
“Louis Menand has entitled his polemic, "Fractured Franchise: Are the Wrong People Voting?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘polemic’.
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pabouche, pabulous, pabulum, pacable, pace, pachydermia, pachyglossal, pachymeter, pachynsis, paciferous, pacificate, pactolian and 1766 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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My first list
exposition, anecdote, perspicacious, polemic, imbroglio, irascible, vicissitude, venality, payola, amatory, caliginous, avuncular and 5 more...
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Bad court
flagrant, polemic, hyperbole, flagitious, conflagrate, captious, perspicacious
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Remember Not To Forget
Sephardic, Umwelt, amphiboly, untrammeled, sequela, pandiculation, tensegrity, syncretism, pugilism, shemagh, disquisition, perspicacity and 74 more...
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list
levity, copious, exacting, diffidence, thrift, tenuous, egalitarian, ephemeral, polemic, lubricious, ossified
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GRE Passage Words
admonish, ephemeral, ambivalence, antipathy, antithetical, countenance, deride, eclectic, enigma, ethos, expediency, impinge and 15 more...
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
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GRE Reference
A list of words unfamiliar to me that I have repeatedly encountered in GRE question sets.
parochial, clique, salacious, aegis, ostracize, conceited, sacrilegious, inane, serendipity, gourmand, polemic, tenuous and 138 more...
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All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
anacoluthon, defenestration, hypnopomp, hypnagogue, idioglossia, panopticon, tatterdemalion, abalone, caltrop, miasma, paroxysm, smalt and 491 more...
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controversial
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My Good Words
robust, seeth, uncanny, earnest, palpate, belabor, minx, plaintive, endemic, contingent, henceforth, perfunctory and 92 more...
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Need to Know!
elicit, educe, refute, cogency, churlish, martinet, veritable, polyglot, dissemble, histrionics, prevarication, verbiage and 166 more...
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paper
ineluctable, onus, polemic, mendacious, empirical, athwart, lucubration, adumbrate, allay
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my GRE words
pedant, wizened, histrionic, logorrhea, frenetic, approbation, quibble, knell, acclivity, droog, prevarication, aplomb and 182 more...
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Faves
nepenthe, cupidity, anodyne, obdurate, doleful, obsolescent, quale, piquant, velleity, inchoate, disport, facile and 366 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for polemic.

kingparton In an ideal state of society one might imagine the good New growing naturally out of the good Old, without the need for polemic and theory; this would be a society with a living tradition.
T. S. Eliot, "Reflections on Vers Libre" Aug 25, 2011