Word.ws English Dictionary

contraire

contraire is the obsolete form of contrary.

Meaning of contrary

Adjective

contrary (comparative more contrary, superlative most contrary)

  1. Opposite; in an opposite direction; in opposition; adverse.
    • contrary winds
  2. Opposed; contradictory; inconsistent.
    • Galileo [Galilei]'s zeal for his opinions soon led him again to bring the question under the notice of the Pope, and the result was a declaration of the Inquisition that the doctrine of the earth's motion appeared to be contrary to the sacred scripture.1847, William Whewell, “Sequel to Copernicus—The Reception and Development of the Copernican Theory”, in History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Times. […], new edition...
  3. Given to opposition; perverse; wayward.
    • a contrary disposition; a contrary child

See all 14 meanings of contrary

Forms of contraire

comparativemore contraire
superlativemost contraire

Questions about contraire

What is contraire the obsolete form of?
Contraire is the obsolete form of contrary.

Words near contraire in the dictionary

  1. contraindicative
  2. contraindicator
  3. contraindicators
  4. contraindicatory
  5. contraintuitive
  6. contraire
  7. contraisolateral
  8. contraktnik
  9. contraktniki
  10. contraktniks
  11. contralateral

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: contraire (page history and authors); contrary (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “contraire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/contraire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.