as in dispute
variance of opinion on a matter
a heated disputation over the true authorship of the poem popularly known as "The Night Before Christmas"
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Recent Examples of disputation
Only death could remove Hoover from office, and his departure eventually did lead to significant reforms, but the notoriety of the FBI has endured—thanks often to fiascos of its own making—as has contentious disputation about it.
—
Robert G. Kaiser, The New York Review of Books, 27 Feb. 2020
By taking steps to remember that politics always involves disputation, even among those who vote for the same candidates and affiliate with the same party, Americans may begin to rediscover the ability to respectfully disagree with opponents.
—Robert B. Talisse, The Conversation, 3 Jan. 2022
In 1486 a young philosopher named Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), famed for his memory, his polyglot learning, and his daring, decided to hold a public disputation in Rome.
—Anthony Grafton, The New York Review of Books, 5 Nov. 2020
Abstruse disputation is hardly unknown but argument has reached a new level with threats of lawsuits and charges of snobbish bigotry and snowflake naïveté.
—Ethan Bronner, Bloomberg.com, 29 Sep. 2020
See All Example Sentences for disputation
Robert G. Kaiser, The New York Review of Books, 27 Feb. 2020
By taking steps to remember that politics always involves disputation, even among those who vote for the same candidates and affiliate with the same party, Americans may begin to rediscover the ability to respectfully disagree with opponents.
—Robert B. Talisse, The Conversation, 3 Jan. 2022
In 1486 a young philosopher named Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), famed for his memory, his polyglot learning, and his daring, decided to hold a public disputation in Rome.
—Anthony Grafton, The New York Review of Books, 5 Nov. 2020
Abstruse disputation is hardly unknown but argument has reached a new level with threats of lawsuits and charges of snobbish bigotry and snowflake naïveté.
—Ethan Bronner, Bloomberg.com, 29 Sep. 2020
See All Example Sentences for disputation
Recent Examples of Synonyms for disputation
Noun
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Threads on the South Park subreddit and social media have lit up with foul-mouthed complaints from international fans, most of them directed at Paramount and David Ellison’s Skydance Media, whose $8 billion buyout of Paramount is at the heart of the South Park dispute.—
Scott Roxborough,
HollywoodReporter,
14 July 2025
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But there are still some sour grapes about the big tactical dispute in February.—
Burgess Everett,
semafor.com,
14 July 2025
Noun
-
Where interest rates should be today, and when they should be reduced, is already a topic of debate inside the Fed, a decision, it should be noted, that cannot be made unilaterally by the chair.—
Ron Insana,
CNBC,
11 July 2025
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For the more religious who follow halacha, or traditional Jewish law, the question about how to handle the starting and ending times of Shabbat has been a topic of debate ever since the congregation was founded in 1905.—
Dan Fellner,
Sun Sentinel,
11 July 2025
Noun
-
The controversy in Spain echoes similar issues in Portugal, where Rabbi Daniel Litvak of Oporto was arrested in 2022 amid investigations into fraudulent citizenship applications linked notably to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.—
Orge Castellano,
Sun Sentinel,
7 July 2025
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Social Security has become a lightening rod for controversy since Trump’s inauguration in January.—
Alicia Adamczyk,
Fortune,
7 July 2025
Noun
-
With no deadline spurring action and the clear potential for disagreement on valuation, this staring contest could go on for a while.—
John Hollinger,
New York Times,
7 July 2025
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At the core of disagreements over transgender access to sports is whether trans women have an unfair physical athletic advantage over athletes assigned female at birth.—
Alaa Elassar,
CNN Money,
4 July 2025
Cite this Entry
“Disputation.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/disputation. Accessed 19 Jul. 2025.
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