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CONTRADICTORY
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Two propositions are contradictories if both cannot be true (or both cannot be false) at the same time
Classified under:
Nouns denoting relations between people or things or ideas
Hypernyms ("contradictory" is a kind of...):
logical relation (a relation between propositions)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Unable for both to exist or be true at the same time
Synonyms:
contradictory; mutually exclusive
Classified under:
Similar:
incompatible (not compatible)
Derivation:
contradict (deny the truth of)
contradict (be in contradiction with)
contradictoriness (the relation that exists when opposites cannot coexist)
Sense 2
Meaning:
In disagreement
Example:
contradictory attributes of unjust justice and loving vindictiveness
Synonyms:
at odds; conflicting; contradictory; self-contradictory
Classified under:
Similar:
inconsistent (displaying a lack of consistency)
Derivation:
contradict (be in contradiction with)
contradictoriness (the relation that exists when opposites cannot coexist)
Sense 3
Meaning:
That confounds or contradicts or confuses
Synonyms:
confounding; contradictory
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unsupportive (not furnishing support or assistance)
Derivation:
contradict (be in contradiction with)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Of words or propositions so related that both cannot be true and both cannot be false
Example:
'perfect' and 'imperfect' are contradictory terms
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
antonymous (of words: having opposite meanings)
Derivation:
contradict (deny the truth of)
contradict (be in contradiction with)
contradictoriness (the relation that exists when opposites cannot coexist)
Context examples:
These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger—when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile—when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders—even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
But for this strange kind of secrecy maintained by them relative to their engagement, which in fact concealed nothing at all, she could not account; and it was so wholly contradictory to their general opinions and practice, that a doubt sometimes entered her mind of their being really engaged, and this doubt was enough to prevent her making any inquiry of Marianne.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
But how can it, when it's so contradictory that I don't know whether I've written a promising book or broken all the ten commandments? cried poor Jo, turning over a heap of notices, the perusal of which filled her with pride and joy one minute, wrath and dismay the next.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
I think I had some glimpses of the real character of this conversation at the time; but I am sure, now, that the good creature originated it, and took her part in it, merely that my mother might comfort herself with the little contradictory summary in which she had indulged.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
We parted with great heartiness on both sides; and when I had seen Traddles to his own door, and was going home alone, I thought, among the other odd and contradictory things I mused upon, that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was, I was probably indebted to some compassionate recollection he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for never having been asked by him for money.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
