Word.ws English Dictionary

contrariety

/kɒntɹəˈɹʌɪəti/

contrariety noun: opposition or contrariness; cross-purposes, marked contrast.

Noun

contrariety (countable and uncountable, plural contrarieties)

  1. Opposition or contrariness; cross-purposes, marked contrast.
    • What differences of sense and reason, what contrarietie of imaginations doth the diversitie of our passions present unto us?1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter XII, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
    • This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source of many a fraternal squabble.1759–1767, [Laurence Sterne], The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, volume (please specify |volume=I to IX), London: […] T. Becket and P. A. Dehondt, […]

contrariety meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu

contrariety in Hindi

Translations
वैपरीत्य vaiprītya

contrariety in Tamil

contrariety, diversity
விரோதம் virōtam

contrariety in Marathi

contrariety, heterogeneity
वैगुण्य vaiguṇya

contrariety in Telugu

contrariety, reverse, queerness
విపరీతము viparītamu
More languagesFewer languages
contrariety in Kannada
ವೈಪರೀತ್ಯ

Examples of contrariety in a sentence

  • The wind blowing steady and gentle from the south, there was no contrariety between that and the current, and the billows rose and fell unbroken.1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:
  • At the heart of his argument is the contrariety between day and night, light and dark.2011 September 21, Tim Blanning, “The reinvention of the night”, in Times Literary Supplement:

Forms of contrariety

pluralcontrarieties
alternative form (obsolete)contrarietie

Origin of contrariety

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

Words formed from contrariety

Questions about contrariety

What does contrariety mean?
Contrariety means opposition or contrariness; cross-purposes, marked contrast.
What is contrariety in Hindi?
Contrariety in Hindi is वैपरीत्य (vaiprītya). See Contrariety meaning in Hindi.
How do you use contrariety in a sentence?
The wind blowing steady and gentle from the south, there was no contrariety between that and the current, and the billows rose and fell unbroken.
What part of speech is contrariety?
Contrariety is a noun.
How do you pronounce contrariety?
Contrariety is pronounced /kɒntɹəˈɹʌɪəti/ (UK).
What is the plural of contrariety?
The plural of contrariety is contrarieties.

Words near contrariety in the dictionary

  1. contrariants
  2. contraried
  3. contraries
  4. contrarietie
  5. contrarieties
  6. contrariety
  7. contrarily
  8. contrariness
  9. contrarinesses
  10. contrariosity
  11. contrarious

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: contrariety (page history and authors); விரோதம் (Tamil) (page history and authors); वैगुण्य (Marathi) (page history and authors); విపరీతము (Telugu) (page history and authors); contrariety (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-contrariety.wav.

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