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pugnacious

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 3 September 2026

Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin pugnāci-, a stem of pugnax (“fond of fighting, aggressive, combative, pugnacious”) + English -ous (“suffix forming adjectives from nouns, denoting presence of qualities in any degree (typically an abundance)”). Pugnax is derived from pugnō (“to combat, fight; etc.”) + -āx (suffix forming adjectives denoting a tendency to do the actions of the verbs it is attached to); and pugnō from pugnus (“fist”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *puǵnos, *puḱnos (from *pewǵ- (“to engage in a fistfight, punch; to poke, prick”)) + Latin -nus (suffix forming nouns)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs).[1]

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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pugnacious (comparative more pugnacious, superlative most pugnacious)

  1. Having a tendency to argue or fight; aggressive, combative.
    Synonyms: bellicose, belligerent; see also Thesaurus:combative
    Antonyms: unpugnacious; see also Thesaurus:calm
    • 1642, H[enry] M[ore], “ΑΝΤΙΜΟΝΟΨΥΧΙΑ [Antimonopsychia], or That All Souls are Not One”, in ΨΥΧΩΔΙΑ [Psychōdia] Platonica: Or A Platonicall Song of the Soul, […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Roger Daniel, printer to the Universitie, →OCLC, , stanza 14, page 38:
      Plato affirms Idees; / But Ariſtotle vvith his pugnacious race / As idle figments ſtifly them denies.
    • 1858, Anthony Trollope, “Dr. Thorne”, in Doctor Thorne. […], volume I, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 53:
      Not that the doctor was a bully, or even pugnacious, in the usual sense of the word; he had no disposition to provoke a fight, no propense love of quarrelling.
    • 1904, Jack London, chapter XV, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC, page 138:
      As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty.
    • 2002 December 2, Ken Follett, Hornet Flight, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Dutton, →ISBN, page 200:
      In the face of bad news [William] Churchill normally became even more pugnacious, always wanting to respond to defeat by going on the attack.
    • 2014 September 13, Oliver Brown, “Oscar Pistorius jailed for five years – sport afforded no protection against his tragic fallibilities: Bladerunner’s punishment for killing Reeva Steenkamp is but a frippery when set against the burden that her bereft parents, June and Barry, must carry [print version: No room for sentimentality in this tragedy, page S22]”, in The Daily Telegraph‎[1], London: Telegraph Media Group, published 21 October 2014, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 15 July 2025, Sport section:
      [I]n the 575 days since [Oscar] Pistorius shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, there has been an unseemly scramble to construct revisionist histories, to identify evidence beneath that placid exterior of a pugnacious, hair-trigger personality.
    • 2019 February 27, Drachinifel [pseudonym], 29:50 from the start, in The Battle of Samar – Odds? What are Those?‎[2], archived from the original on 3 November 2022:
      Of course the Johnston swings around to engage the entire flotilla, and, despite taking several more hits, Johnston successfully forces away the first two ships, which leads to the entire squadron taking a detour to avoid the single pugnacious ship.
    • 2025 September 8, Roger Cohen, “French Prime Minister [François] Bayrou loses confidence vote, putting pressure on [Emmanuel] Macron”, in The New York Times‎[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 8 September 2025:
      In a speech this weekend, Ms. [Marine] Le Pen suggested that her "pugnacious" young protégé, Jordan Bardella, who is one of the most popular politicians in France, was ready to become prime minister.

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ “pugnacious, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2026; “pugnacious, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
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