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argument

UK/ˈɑːɡjʊmənt/US/ˈɑɹɡjʊmənt/
nounA2+3 meaningsVery common — you will meet it every day · #1,692 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: arguments

An argument is a row — two people going at each other with words, voices rising, neither of them listening. The kind you have with your brother over the last slice of pizza, or with a neighbour over a parking space.

The other argument is the cold one: the reasons you put forward for a position. A lawyer builds an argument, a paper sets one out in three parts, and there is a strong argument for closing the road to cars. Same word, and the verbs tell them apart — you have an argument, but you make an argument. It takes with for the person and about or over for the subject: an argument with your landlord about the heating. In computing an argument is a value you hand to a function, which is the Latin sense in modern dress.

Sujai Thomman · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of argument

  1. 1nounargumentAn angry exchange between people who disagree.A2+~2%

    “They had a long argument about money and went to bed furious.”

    synonyms: disagreement

  2. 2nouncaseA reason, or a set of reasons, given to support a view.B1~96%

    “Her argument convinced most of the committee.”

    synonyms: case, reasoning

  3. 3nouncomputingIn computing, a value passed into a function for it to work on.C1~2%

    “The function takes two arguments and returns a date.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 140 sentences found in the wild and placed 134 of them on a sense (6 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Also accepted in games: row, quarrel

Phrases it lives in

  • for the sake of argument — supposing something is true, just to test where the idea leads

Where it comes from

It is argue with -ment fastened to the end, and behind that the Latin argumentum, which meant evidence and proof — and also the plot of a play, the thread the whole thing hangs on. An argument was once what a story was about.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *h₂erǵ-

  2. Latin

    argūmentum

  3. Anglo-Norman

    arguement

  4. Middle English

    argument

  5. English, today

    argument

From Middle English argument, from Anglo-Norman arguement, from Latin argūmentum. From Middle English argument, from Anglo-Norman - and Old French arguement, from Latin argumentum. The English word is analysable as argue + ment. a doublet of argumentum. Displaced native racu and ġeflit.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in News & Communication, A Man Called Ove, Computing & Code, Logic & Argument

First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

argument in the wild

  • The strength of such an argument depends on whether the small step really is likely to lead to the effect.

    Slippery slope

  • The earliest recorded versions of this argument are associated with Socrates in ancient Greece, although it has been argued that he was taking up an older argument.

    Teleological argument

  • Later, Averroes and Thomas Aquinas considered the argument acceptable, but not necessarily the best argument.

    Teleological argument

  • For instance, the soundness of legal arguments depends on the context in which they are made.

    Fallacy

  • As a consequence, the argument becomes a matter of faith and fails to persuade those who do not already accept it.

    Circular reasoning

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • argue