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pugnacious

adj
/pʌɡˈneɪ.ʃəs/UK

Etymology

From the stem of Latin pugnāx + -ous, from pugnō (“to fight”), from pugnus (“fist”). By surface analysis, Latin pugn- + -acious.

  1. derived from pugn- + -acious
  2. derived from pugnāx + -ous

Definitions

  1. Naturally aggressive or hostile

    Naturally aggressive or hostile; combative; belligerent; bellicose.

    • 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.
    • As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty.
    • In the face of bad news Churchill normally became even more pugnacious, always wanting to respond to defeat by going on the attack.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at pugnacious. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01pugnacious02belligerent03warlike04bellicose05hostile06aggressive07combative

A definitional loop anchored at pugnacious. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at pugnacious

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA