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  1. pugnacious love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Combative in nature; belligerent. See Synonyms at belligerent.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Disposed to fight; quarrelsome; given to fighting: as, a pugnacious fellow; a pugnacious disposition.
  2. Synonyms Contentious.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Naturally aggressive or hostile; combative; belligerent.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Disposed to fight; inclined to fighting; quarrelsome; fighting.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. tough and callous by virtue of experience
  2. adj. ready and able to resort to force or violence

Etymologies

  1. Latin, a form of pugnō ("I fight"), from pugnus ("fist"), from Proto-Indo-European roots. (Wiktionary)
  2. From Latin pugnāx, pugnāc-, from pugnāre, to fight, from pugnus, fist; see peuk- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Jeff, in your article today regarding this debate, you called her pugnacious, and it started with the very first question.”

    CNN Transcript Feb 27, 2008

  • “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.”

    Archive 2006-04-01

  • “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.”

    Daybreak; a Romance of an Old World

  • “The Mindset Media study found that Housewives fans are "pugnacious" "antagonists" who like Botox.”

    The Washington Post: 'Mad Men' fans, you're creative. Watch 'Dancing with the Stars'? You'll like fiber.

  • “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.”

    Election Central Saturday Roundup

  • “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.”

    The Sophist

  • “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.”

    Foot-prints of Travel or, Journeyings in Many Lands

  • “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.”

    From On High

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synonyms (6)

Words with the same meaning

  1. quarrelsome
  1. fighting
  1. combative
  1. militant
  1. bellicose
  1. contentious

equivalents (2)

Other words for ‘pugnacious’

  1. tough
  1. aggressive

antonyms (1)

Words with the opposite meaning

  1. peaceable

same context (21)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. quarrelsome
  2. quick-tempered
  3. combative
  4. hot-tempered
  1. excitable
  2. headstrong
  3. contumacious
  4. distrustful
  1. moody
  2. high-spirited
  3. surly
  4. resentful
  1. vindictive
  2. peevish
  3. choleric
  4. imperious
  1. intractable
  2. reticent
  3. stubborn
  4. courageous
  1. testy

rhymes (1)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. rapacious

reverse dictionary (23)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. pugnacious
  2. fighting fish
  3. combative
  4. hornet
  1. bellicose
  2. pugnaciously
  3. pugnacity
  4. bullyboy
  1. fighter
  2. truculent
  3. rooster
  4. tortoiseshell turtle
  1. prickleback
  2. scrappiness
  3. stickleback
  4. tough
  1. eretmochelys imbricata
  2. hawkbill
  3. hawksbill
  4. hawksbill turtle
  1. acious
  2. fighting-cock
  3. Morena

tags (17)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. bulldog
  2. fighter
  3. bent nose
  1. bullheaded
  2. stubborn
  3. aggressive
  1. broken nose
  2. boxer
  3. combative
  1. anger
  2. cvccvcvvvc
  3. gn
  1. war
  2. aggression
  3. personality
  1. trait
  2. SATWOTD

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Lists

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Comments

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  • 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

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‘pugnacious’ has been looked up 7158 times, loved by 18 people, added to 178 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 15.