Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A combat with swords; hence, a contest of any kind; a quarrel; a dispute; a disputation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Act of digladiating.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete Act of digladiating; violent dispute or combat.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • So as it is not possible but this quality of knowledge must fall under popular contempt, the people being apt to contemn truths upon occasion of controversies and altercations, and to think they are all out of their way which never meet; and when they see such digladiation about subtleties, and matters of no use or moment, they easily fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, Verba ista sunt senum otiosorum.

    The Advancement of Learning 2003

  • So as it is not possible but this quality of knowledge must fall under popular contempt, the people being apt to contemn truths upon occasion of controversies and altercations, and to think they are all out of their way which never meet; and when they see such digladiation about subtleties, and matters of no use or moment, they easily fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, Verba ista sunt senum otiosorum.

    The Advancement of Learning Francis Bacon 1593

  • How it was, that in such a fighting country, old Kasm continued at this dangerous business, can only be understood, by those who know the entire readiness - nay, eagerness of the old gentleman, to do reason to all serious inquirers; - and one or two results which happened some years before the time I am writing of, to say nothing of some traditions in the army, convinced the public, that his practice was as sharp at the small sword as at the cut and thrust of professional digladiation.

    The flush times of Alabama and Mississippi : a series of sketches, 1853

Comments

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  • Those luminous digladiations...

    - Malcolm Lowry, October Ferry to Gabriola

    July 30, 2008

  • Is this the systematic removal from one's garden of of gladiolus flowers?

    July 30, 2008

  • Either that or the retirement of a gladiator...

    July 30, 2008

  • Yet another word for the removal of various genitalia...

    July 30, 2008

  • Gosh - World Wide Words says the etymology is in fact from gladius, the gladiator's sword. So I proclaim chained_bear's as the only madeupical defintion worth reading.

    July 30, 2008

  • ... or yarb's, yarb?

    July 30, 2008

  • No. Mine wasn't madeupical enough.

    July 31, 2008

  • everyone is quite a blade on this one

    September 21, 2008