Adjective: contrary
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more contrary |
| Superlative | most contrary |
Sample Sentences
-
contrary winds
-
And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me[…] [1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Leviticus 26:21:]
-
We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way. [c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:]
-
Galileo [Galilei]'s zeal for his opinions soon led him again to bring the question under the notice of the Pope, and the result was a declaration of the Inquisition that the doctrine of the earth's motion appeared to be contrary to the sacred scripture. [1847, William Whewell, “Sequel to Copernicus—The Reception and Development of the Copernican Theory”, in History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Times. […], new edition, volume I, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], →OCLC, book V (History of Formal Astronomy after the Stationary Period), section 4 (The Copernican System Opposed on Theological Grounds), page 419:]
-
a contrary disposition; a contrary child
Adjectives inflected like contrary
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
From Middle English contrarie, compare French contraire, from Old French contraire, from Latin contrārius (“opposite, opposed, contrary”), from contrā (“against”). See: French Adjectives '
contraire', Latin Adjectives '
contrārius'.
Verbs referencing "contrary"
Finnish Adjectives
kontraarinen.