contrary

Pluralcontraries (some meanings)

Formscontraries, contrarying, contraried

1. 1
   adjective

   Opposite in direction, position, or nature; running counter to something, or unfavorable to it.

   A contrary current dragged the swimmers away from the shore.

   The jury reached a verdict contrary to public expectation.

   Similaropposite, opposing, adverse, counter

   Oppositefavorable

   Note

   The root sense, and the one the whole family grows from: Middle English contrarie, through Old French contraire, from Latin contrārius, built on contrā, "against". Its oldest company is direction and movement: contrary winds, Shakespeare's "a contrary way", and the King James Bible of 1611 warning those who "walk contrary unto me". Placed after a verb of motion, it reads almost as an adverb.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The thing that is the opposite of what has been stated or assumed.

   Her calm manner suggested confidence, though her shaking hands told the contrary.

   Many assume money brings happiness, but experience often proves the contrary.

   Similaropposite, reverse, converse, antithesis

   Note

   Opposites taken as things in themselves, often in the plural. King Lear's "No contraries hold more antipathy / Than I and such a knave" sets two people at the poles of a pair. In everyday prose the singular usually comes with the, as in to prove the contrary. Keep it apart from the logician's contrary, which names a strict relation between propositions.

3. 3
   adjective

   Opposed to or in conflict with something; contradictory or inconsistent with it.

   The findings were contrary to the team's original hypothesis.

   She held a contrary view and refused to sign the report.

   Similaropposing, conflicting, contradictory, opposite, inconsistent

   Oppositeconsistent, compatible

   Note

   Here the opposition is between ideas rather than forces, and the adjective usually takes to: contrary to the evidence, contrary to the hypothesis. William Whewell's account of Galileo (1847) shows the Inquisition judging the doctrine of the earth's motion "contrary to" what it held sacred. It describes claims and findings. When the stubbornness belongs to a person, the word has shifted to the "perverse" meaning.

4. 4
   Saykuhn-TRAIR-eeUS/kənˈtɹɛɹi/UK/kənˈtɹɛəɹi/

   adjective

   Inclined to oppose or disagree; stubbornly doing the opposite of what is wanted or expected.

   Their contrary uncle objected to each idea on principle alone.

   He was a contrary man, opposing even his closest friends.

   Similarperverse, obstinate, stubborn, awkward, difficult

   Oppositecooperative, obliging, accommodating, agreeable

5. 5
   adverb

   In a manner opposed to something; conversely, against what is supposed.

   Contrary to the forecast, the afternoon stayed dry and clear.

   The new figures point contrary to last year's trend.

   Similarcounter

6. 6
   nouncountable

   One of a pair of propositions that cannot both be true at the same time, although both may be false.

   Logicians treat 'everyone passed' and 'no one passed' as contraries, because both fail if some passed and some did not.

   A contrary differs from a contradictory in that the two members can both be false.

   Note

   Traditional logic draws a fine line here. Isaac Watts's Logick (1725) gives the pair "every vine is a tree" and "no vine is a tree": universals that differ in quality, never true together but possibly both false. That last clause separates contraries from contradictories, which can be neither true together nor false together. In careful writing the two terms are not interchangeable.

7. 7
   nounhistoricalcountable

   A kind of loaded die, weighted so that it lands on particular faces more often than chance would allow.

   The gamester slipped a contrary onto the table, and the dice fell sixes all evening.

   Caught with a pair of contraries, the cheat was thrown out of the tavern.

   Note

   A word from the history of gambling, met now in accounts of cheats and crooked play rather than at any modern table. It behaves as an ordinary count noun with the plural contraries, standing where die would stand: a pair of contraries, a contrary up his sleeve. It belongs in historical writing, and modern readers will usually need a gloss.

Showing meanings only. Show all 14