What does "rebuttal" mean?

The act of contradicting something by making a contrary argument, or presenting contrary evidence.

What is a synonym for "rebuttal"?

Common synonyms include: confutation, contradiction, rebutter, refutation, answer, argument.

//ɹiˈbʌt.əl// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Noun

1
The act of contradicting something by making a contrary argument, or presenting contrary evidence.
"For those who imagine the capital flows with milk and honey, or avocado and sourdough, Edmonton is your rebuttal. Once full of light industry, today it has some of the most deprived areas in England."
2
(law) a pleading by the defendant in reply to a plaintiff's surrejoinder wordnet
3
A statement, designed to refute or negate specific arguments put forward by opponents.
4
the speech act of refuting by offering a contrary contention or argument wordnet
5
A pleading by a defendant in reply to the evidence put forward by a plaintiff or the prosecution.

"The defense lawyer was confident that he would be able to answer the prosecutor's arguments in his rebuttal."

From rebut + -al.

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