on the contrary

English

Alternative forms

• to the contrary

Prepositional phrase

on the contrary

1. (conjunctive) Opposite of what had earlier been expected or assumed.
   • 2013 April 9, Andrei Lankov, “Stay Cool. Call North Korea’s Bluff.”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     Even if they managed to strike Japan, the United States or South Korea with nuclear weapons — a big if, given that they do not have a reliable delivery system — they could not save themselves from ultimate defeat. On the contrary, the use of nuclear or other terror weapons would be certain to invite overwhelming retaliation, delivering North Korea’s decision makers to a fiery oblivion.

Synonyms

• (opposite of what had earlier been assumed): au contraire, if anything, far from it
• contrariwise

Translations

opposite

• Arabic: عَلَى الْعَكْس (ʕalā l-ʕaks), بِالْعَكْس (bi-l-ʿaks)

  Moroccan Arabic: بالعكس (be-l-ʿaks)

• Aramaic: אדרבא
• Asturian: al contrariu
• Azerbaijani: əksinə
• Bashkir: киреһенсә (kirehensə)
• Bulgarian: напротив (bg) (naprotiv)
• Catalan: contràriament (ca), al contrari, per contra
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 反而 (zh) (fǎn'ér), 相反 (zh) (xiāngfǎn), 反之 (zh) (fǎnzhī), 與此相反／与此相反 (zh), 与此相反 (zh) (yǔcǐxiāngfǎn)

• Danish: tværtimod
• Dutch: integendeel (nl)
• Faroese: tvørturímóti, harafturímóti
• Finnish: päinvastoin (fi), kun taas, pikemminkin, toisin (fi), sitä vastoin
• French: au contraire (fr)
• Galician: ao contrario
• German: im Gegenteil
• Greek: αντίθετα (el) (antítheta)
• Haitian Creole: okontrè
• Hebrew: אִיפְּכָא מִסְתַּבְּרָא (he), אַדְּרַבָּה (he) (ad'rabá), נַהֲפוֹךְ הוּא (he) (nahafókh' hu), לְהֶפֶךְ (l'hefékh')
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Hungarian: ellenkezőleg (hu)
• Icelandic: þvert á móti
• Italian: al contrario, anzi (it)
• Japanese: それどころか (sore-dokoroka)
• Latin: immō (la), ex contrāriō
• Luxembourgish: am Géigendeel
• Maori: kāhore, ehara, ehara tonu, engari
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: tvert om

  Nynorsk: tvert om

• Polish: przeciwnie (pl), wręcz przeciwnie
• Portuguese: ao contrário, pelo contrário
• Romanian: din contră
• Russian: наоборо́т (ru) (naoborót), напро́тив (ru) (naprótiv)
• Serbo-Croatian: dapače (sh), upravo suprotno
• Spanish: al contrario, por el contrario
• Swedish: tvärtom (sv)
• Ukrainian: навпаки (uk) (navpaky)
• Walloon: estô (wa)
• Yiddish: אַדרבא (aderabe)