From Middle French contentieux, from Latin contentiōsus (“quarrelsome, perverse”), from contentiō (“contention”), from contendere, past participle contentus (“to contend”). Equivalent to English contention + -ous.

• IPA^(key): /kənˈtɛn.ʃəs/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnʃəs

contentious (comparative more contentious, superlative most contentious)

1. Marked by heated arguments or controversy.
   • 2012 June 19, Phil McNulty, “England 1-0 Ukraine”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Ukraine, however, will complain long and hard about a contentious second-half incident when Marko Devic's shot clearly crossed the line before it was scrambled away by John Terry, only for the officials to remain unmoved.

2. Given to struggling with others out of jealousy or discord.
   • 2020, Susanna Clarke, Piranesi, Bloomsbury, page 212:

     She was not a contentious person as the Other had been; she did not argue and contradict everything I said.

• See also Thesaurus:quarrelsome
• See also Thesaurus:combative

• contend
• contender
• contention

• “contentious”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “contentious”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.