Contrariety

//kɒntɹəˈɹʌɪəti// noun

noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Opposition or contrariness; cross-purposes, marked contrast. countable, uncountable

    "What differences of sense and reason, what contrarietie of imaginations doth the diversitie of our passions present unto us?"

  2. 2
    the relation between contraries wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abominabilityaccordadditionadjunctaffairsaffiliation

Example

More examples

"What differences of sense and reason, what contrarietie of imaginations doth the diversitie of our passions present unto us?"

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French contrariété, from Late Latin contrarietas, from contrarius, from Latin contra (“against”). By surface analysis, contrary + -ety.

Related phrases

cross purposes

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.