Synonyms and Antonyms of contentious
- the Tartars were a contentious people who terrorized much of Asia and eastern Europe during the Middle Ages
antagonistic, fierce, hostile, hot-tempered
acidic, bearish, bilious, bristly, choleric, crabby, cranky, cross, disagreeable, dyspeptic, fractious, fretful, grouchy, grumpy, huffy, ill-humored, ill-natured, ill-tempered, irascible, irritable, ornery, peevish, pettish, petulant, prickly, querulous, rude, snappish, snappy, stroppy [British], surly, testy, touchy, ugly, waspish
- a tiresomely contentious person who likes to argue for the sake of arguing
argumentative, controversial, disputatious, polemical (also polemic), quarrelsome, scrappy
aggressive, bellicose, belligerent, combative, gladiatorial, militant, pugnacious, truculent, warlike
balky, contrary, ornery, perverse, restive, wayward
disobedient, froward, insubordinate, intractable, recalcitrant, refractory
hardheaded, headstrong, mulish, obdurate, obstinate, pigheaded, resistant, self-opinionated, self-willed, stubborn, unbending, uncompromising, uncooperative, unreasonable, unyielding, willful (or wilful)
acidic, bearish, bilious, cantankerous, captious, choleric, crabby, cranky, cross, disagreeable, dyspeptic, fretful, grouchy, grumpy, huffy, ill-humored, ill-natured