Other forms: debates, debated, debating
A debate is an argument with rules. Two sides, so many minutes each, somebody in the chair keeping order — a school debating final, or the party leaders on television the week before an election.
Outside the hall the word loosens: the debate about housing, the immigration debate, a long-running debate over what to do with the bridge. No chairman, no time limit, just the public argument taken as a whole. The verb comes in three shapes — parliament debates a bill, you debate a point with a colleague, and you can debate with yourself, as in I debated whether to say anything and decided against it. It takes on, about or over: a debate on the budget, a debate about school hours. Keep it clear of argue. People who debate are taking turns; people who argue are cross with each other.
1noundebateA formal argument in which two sides take turns to speak.~59%
“The debate ran for two hours without a break.”
synonyms: discussion
2nouncontroversyPublic discussion of a question, wherever it happens.~35%
“The debate about housing has gone on for years.”
synonyms: controversy
3verbspeechTo discuss a question formally, from both sides.~4%
“MPs will debate the bill on Thursday.”
4verbdecisionTo turn a decision over in your own mind.~2%
“I debated whether to knock, and walked away instead.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 159 sentences found in the wild and placed 159 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Old French debatre meant to fight, to contend — literally, to beat down. Under it sit Latin dis-, apart and in different directions, and battuō, to beat or to fence. A debate was two people striking at each other from opposite sides; the weapons turned into words and the fencing stayed.
Latin
dis- — apart, in different directions
Old French
debatre — to fight, contend, debate, also literally to beat down
Middle English
debaten
English, today
debate
Built from
From Middle English debaten, from Old French debatre (“to fight, contend, debate, also literally to beat down”), from Romanic desbattere, from Latin dis- (“apart, in different directions”) + battuō (“to beat, to fence”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA