Other forms: contradicted, contradicts, contradicting
To contradict someone is to say the opposite of what they have just said, out loud and to their face. 'It was Tuesday.' 'No, it wasn't.' Children contradict their parents, and nobody in the room enjoys it.
Facts contradict each other too, and that is the more useful use at work: the two reports contradict each other, the evidence contradicts his story, her actions contradict everything she says. The noun is contradiction, and to contradict yourself is to say two things that cannot both be true. Learn the fixed phrase a contradiction in terms — 'a silent alarm' — and the adjective contradictory, for evidence that points both ways at once. Grammar note: contradict takes a direct object with no preposition. You contradict a person, not contradict to them.
1verbcontradictTo say that what someone has said is wrong, by stating the opposite.
“Nobody dared contradict the headmaster.”
2verbfactsOf facts, statements or evidence, to conflict with something else so that both cannot be true.
“The witness's account contradicts the video.”
Contradict comes from Latin contrādictus, past participle of contrādīcō, 'speak against' — and it began as two separate words, contrā and dīcō, 'say'. The dīcō half carries the ancient root deyḱ-. To contradict is, exactly and literally, to speak against.
Proto-Indo-European
*deyḱ-
Latin
contrādictus — contradicted
English, today
contradict
Built from
Derived from Latin contrādictus (“contradicted”), the past participle of contrādīcō (“speak against”) (originally two words).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA