CONTRADICTORY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does contradictory mean? 

• CONTRADICTORY (noun)
  The noun CONTRADICTORY has 1 sense:

1. two propositions are contradictories if both cannot be true (or both cannot be false) at the same time

  Familiarity information: CONTRADICTORY used as a noun is very rare.

• CONTRADICTORY (adjective)
  The adjective CONTRADICTORY has 4 senses:

1. of words or propositions so related that both cannot be true and both cannot be false

2. that confounds or contradicts or confuses

3. in disagreement

4. unable for both to exist or be true at the same time

  Familiarity information: CONTRADICTORY used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONTRADICTORY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Two propositions are contradictories if both cannot be true (or both cannot be false) at the same time

Classified under:

Nouns denoting relations between people or things or ideas

Hypernyms ("contradictory" is a kind of...):

logical relation (a relation between propositions)

• CONTRADICTORY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of words or propositions so related that both cannot be true and both cannot be false

Context example:

'perfect' and 'imperfect' are contradictory terms

Similar:

antonymous (of words: having opposite meanings)

Derivation:

contradict (deny the truth of)

contradict (be in contradiction with)

contradictoriness (the relation that exists when opposites cannot coexist)

Sense 2

Meaning:

That confounds or contradicts or confuses

Synonyms:

confounding; contradictory

Similar:

unsupportive (not furnishing support or assistance)

Derivation:

contradict (be in contradiction with)

Sense 3

Meaning:

In disagreement

Synonyms:

at odds; conflicting; contradictory; self-contradictory

Context example:

contradictory attributes of unjust justice and loving vindictiveness

Similar:

inconsistent (displaying a lack of consistency)

Derivation:

contradict (be in contradiction with)

contradictoriness (the relation that exists when opposites cannot coexist)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Unable for both to exist or be true at the same time

Synonyms:

contradictory; mutually exclusive

Similar:

incompatible (not compatible)

Derivation:

contradict (deny the truth of)

contradict (be in contradiction with)

contradictoriness (the relation that exists when opposites cannot coexist)

 Context examples 

You may have received contradictory information, and that could continue until the retrograde is over.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

This research focuses on nine lines in the 3000-year-old story which can be interpreted in contradictory ways.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

False personal beliefs held contrary to reality, despite contradictory evidence and common sense.

(Delusion, NCI Thesaurus)

They were neither large nor small, while their color was a nondescript brown; but in them smouldered a fire, or, rather, lurked an expression dual and strangely contradictory.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Young women are contradictory creatures in some things—her mother was just the same as her—but their hearts are soft and kind.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You have asserted nothing contradictory to what Mr Elliot appeared to be some years ago.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

You have my thoughts exactly as they arise, my dear Fanny; perhaps they are sometimes contradictory, but it will not be a less faithful picture of my mind.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

So we are currently in a rumour era with experts carrying out research coming to contradictory conclusions.

(Health threats caused by mobile phone radiation, EUROPARL TV)

However, due to limitations in these studies – including not taking into account breastfeeding history and grouping together women who had never been pregnant with those who had been pregnant but experienced pregnancy loss – their results have been inconclusive and sometimes contradictory.

(Pregnancy losses and large numbers of children linked with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, University of Cambridge)

And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories and floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident again changed the current of my ideas.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)