Other forms: confrontations
A confrontation is an open clash face to face. Avoid confrontation, a violent confrontation, a confrontation with the boss.
It implies both sides present and neither backing away, which is what separates it from a complaint. Some people are described as confrontation-averse, which usually costs more in the long run than the argument would have.
1nounconfrontationAn open clash face to face.
“The police tried to avoid a confrontation with the angry protesters.”
confrontation is a clash.
From confront, from Medieval Latin confrontare, to set face to face — con, together, plus frons, a forehead.
Medieval Latin
confronto
Middle French
confronter
English
confront
English, today
confrontation
Built from
From Middle French -. Morphologically confront + ation. confront comes from Middle French confronter, borrowed from Medieval Latin confronto, from con- + frons (“front, forehead”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA