Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Combative in nature; belligerent. See Synonyms at belligerent.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Disposed to fight; quarrelsome; given to fighting: as, a pugnacious fellow; a pugnacious disposition.
- Synonyms Contentious.
Wiktionary
- adj. Naturally aggressive or hostile; combative; belligerent.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Disposed to fight; inclined to fighting; quarrelsome; fighting.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. tough and callous by virtue of experience
- adj. ready and able to resort to force or violence
Etymologies
- From Latin pugnāx, pugnāc-, from pugnāre, to fight, from pugnus, fist; see peuk- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Jeff, in your article today regarding this debate, you called her pugnacious, and it started with the very first question.”
“On the middle step was what vaguely resembled a cat but could more correctly be described as a pugnacious face in the middle of an otherwise featureless ragged dirty grey furball.”
“Long before this time, when the inhabitants of the moon were sometimes governed by their passions and before the day of peace and good will had fully arrived, it had been discovered that what was known as the pugnacious instinct was only a disease, bad blood in fact as well as in name, and a remedy had been found for it.”
“The Mindset Media study found that Housewives fans are "pugnacious" "antagonists" who like Botox.”
“I told them that the Bolton battle was about more than just John Bolton and was for many of us a" proxy battle "over the kind of pugnacious, anti-internationalism that had become the dominant personality of the Bush administration's foreign policy.”
“On May 16, Obama's speech about Iran was called "pugnacious" on CBS, not exactly a positive view.”
John K. Wilson: Media Research Center Lies Exposed about Obama and the Press
“STRANGER: That part of the pugnacious which is a contest of bodily strength may be properly called by some such name as violent.”
“a rule be called pugnacious; they excite themselves to fight by indulging in strange war-dances and by singing songs full of braggadocio; and, after having been thus wrought up to a state of frenzy, they are perfectly reckless as to personal hazard.”
“Overlooking the editorial use of the word "pugnacious" in describing Don Blankenship - who is anything but - there are certainly questions arising out of this tragedy that demand answers.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pugnacious’.
-
Stump the Beezer
incipient, apocryphal, spurious, compendium, genius loci, tenterhooks, effusive, syncophant, glycosyn, pugnacious, secure authentica...
-
Words build meanings from origins( etymology )
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 837 more...
-
Them's Fighting Words
annihilate, clandestine, conflagration, enmity, feral, furtive, impede, intrepid, pacify, pugnacious, ruse, stratagem and 5 more...
-
Words to Know
Words that will hopefully help for the sat.
capricious, bombastic, decorous, loquacious, ossified, jingoism, mitigated, venerable, supercilious, pugnacious, jubilant, Perfidy and 17 more...
joebros pugnacious Richard Nixon Losing Ground Charles Murray Mar 30, 2012
Casey "I hide like a parasite in the skin of this old city that snores and farts and rumbles and scratches and swells and grows warty and pugnacious with age." From Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Sep 26, 2011
atreyu "inclined to quarrel or fight readily; quarrelsome; belligerent; combative."
- dictionary.com Mar 25, 2009