Dispute

How to spell dispute

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dispute

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dispute mean?

1. verbTo argue about or question the truth, fairness, or validity of something.
2. nounA disagreement or argument, especially a formal or prolonged one.

Dispute in a sentence

• verb

  The customer wrote to dispute the charge on the invoice.

• noun

  The pay dispute between the union and management dragged on for months.

• verb

  Few experts dispute the value of regular exercise.

• noun

  A boundary dispute with the neighbours delayed the sale of the house.

Where does dispute come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin disputare, which combined the prefix dis-, meaning 'apart' or 'separately', with putare, a verb that literally meant 'to reckon' or 'to weigh up', and by extension 'to think'. So to disputare was originally to weigh a matter from different sides, to reason it out point by point. In the Latin of the Church it took on the sharper sense of arguing a question in formal debate. English borrowed it through Old French disputer in the 1300s, where it settled into the modern meaning of arguing about or contesting something. The same putare root quietly survives in words like 'compute' (to reckon together) and 'reputation' (what people reckon of you), which is a useful reminder that the middle of dispute is spelled put, not pute being mispronounced.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, separately)
• pute (from Latin putare: to reckon, to think, to weigh)