contradict

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin contrādictus,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the past participle of contrādīcō (“to speak against”),^[2][3][7] which in classical Latin was the phrase contrā (“against”) dīcō (“to say, speak”).^[2][7][8] Dīcō comes from Proto-Indo-European *deik- (“to show”).^[2][9] Barnhart suggests that the English verb may also be a back-formation from the older noun contradiction.^[3] The OED compares French contredire.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To speak against or oppose, a sense now obsolete: Etymonline dates it to the 1570s, Barnhart to 1570–76 and Merriam-Webster to about 1576.^[2][3][4] The OED's first record is from 1582, in the Rheims New Testament, already in the sense "to deny a statement".^[7]

Semantic evolution

The sense "to assert the contrary of a statement, to deny it" followed in 1582,^[3][7] and "to deny the words of a person" about 1600; the OED's first quotation for it is from Shakespeare's Macbeth.^[2][7] Of statements or facts, "to be inconsistent with" is recorded from 1593, in Hooker.^[7][2] Johnson (1755) quoted Hooker for this sense: "No truth can contradict any truth".^[10] The older sense "to oppose, to forbid" lasted into the 18th century,^[7][11] and a noun contradict, a prohibition, is recorded once, in 1606.^[7] The noun contradiction is much older, from before 1382 in the Wycliffe Bible,^[3] and Weekley notes that contradiction in terms is a modern phrase.^[12]

Timeline

• 1570s – to speak against, oppose (obsolete).^[2][3][4]
• 1582 – to assert the contrary of a statement, deny it.^[7][3]
• 1593 – of a statement or fact, to be contrary to.^[7]
• before 1616 – to deny the words of a person, in Macbeth.^[7]
• 1606 – noun, a prohibition (obsolete).^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To say the opposite of a statement, or to declare it false; to deny: The witness contradicted the officer's account.^[4][13][7]
2. To deny what someone says; to say that a person is wrong: Never contradict your grandmother at dinner.^[4][7][11]
3. Of a fact or statement, to be inconsistent with or opposed to: The new data contradicted the official figures.^[4][13][7]
4. (intransitive) To argue against what is said; to be contrary.^[13][11]
5. (logic) To be the contradictory of another proposition.^[4]
6. (obsolete, 1596–1753) To speak against or oppose a claim, plan or person; to forbid.^[7][4][11]

Word family

• contradictable
• contradictor
• contradicter
• contradictive

Related words

• contradiction
• contradictory
• diction
• dictate
• predict

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins