- agonistic
- \ag-uh-NISS-tik\
- DEFINITION
adjective
1
: argumentative
2
: striving for effect : strained
3
: of, relating to, or being aggressive or defensive social interaction (as fighting, fleeing, or submitting) between individuals usually of the same species
- EXAMPLES
"The fulsome praise in the old, residually oral, rhetoric tradition strikes persons from a high-literacy culture as insincere, flatulent, and comically pretentious. But praise goes with the highly polarized, agonistic, oral world of good and evil, virtue and vice, villains and heroes." — From Walter J. Ong's 1982 bookOrality and Literacy
"As the soloist is repeatedly challenged by peremptory brass, the essential agonistic tension of the concerto grows, ending with the soloist climbing to a high, and one hopes victorious peak, before a sudden cutting off." — From a symphony review by Peter McCallum in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), May 6, 2013
"As the soloist is repeatedly challenged by peremptory brass, the essential agonistic tension of the concerto grows, ending with the soloist climbing to a high, and one hopes victorious peak, before a sudden cutting off." — From a symphony review by Peter McCallum in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), May 6, 2013
Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/#DFFyuQIqmuXFygBt.99
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