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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

controversial.

Arousing or likely to arouse controversy.

13 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˌkɒn.tɹəˈvɜː.ʃəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˌkɒn.tɹəˈvɜː.sjəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/General-American[ˌkɑn.t͡ʃɹəˈvɝ.ʃɫ̩]General-American
  1. Arousing or likely to arouse controversy.

  2. Engaging in or given to controversy; disputatious, argumentative.

Where this word comes from

From Latin contrōversiālis, from contrōversia + -ālis. By surface analysis, controversy + -al.

noun/ˌkɒn.tɹəˈvɜː.ʃəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˌkɒn.tɹəˈvɜː.sjəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/General-American[ˌkɑn.t͡ʃɹəˈvɝ.ʃɫ̩]General-American
  1. Someone or something (such as a matter or an argument) that is controversial.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Latin contrōversiālis, from contrōversia + -ālis. By surface analysis, controversy + -al.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.