Contradiction

How to spell contradiction

13 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce contradiction

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does contradiction mean?

1. nounA combination of statements, ideas, or features that are opposed to one another and cannot all be true at once.

Contradiction in a sentence

• The auditor flagged a clear contradiction between the two financial reports.

• There is a glaring contradiction in claiming to value privacy while selling customer data.

Where does contradiction come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin contradictio, a noun built from the verb contradicere, which literally meant 'to speak against'. That verb joined contra, meaning 'against' or 'in opposition', with dicere, meaning 'to say' or 'to speak'. In Roman usage it carried the sense of formally objecting or answering back, and the abstract noun named the act of stating the opposite. English took it in through Old French and Latin during the late 1300s, first in legal and theological argument where one assertion was set squarely against another. The same dicere root surfaces in a whole family of familiar words such as dictate, predict, verdict and dictionary, all of which keep the tell-tale 'dict' spelling that anchors the middle of contradiction.

How the word is built

• contra- (against)
• dict (from dicere: to say, to speak)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)