a. [f. L. contrādict- ppl. stem (as above) + -IVE.]
1. Of contradictory quality or tendency.
1627–77. Feltham, Resolves, II. lxxiii. 315. They are not Contradictive to the Canon.
1641. Milton, Ch. Govt., II. iii. (1851), 167. The consecrating of Temples, carpets, and table-clothes, the railing in of a repugnant and contradictive Mount Sinai in the Gospell.
1706. De Foe, Jure Div., IV. 72. This Passive Sham … The Dream of Contradictive Loyalty, Which makes Men suffer first, and then obey.
1840. Blackw. Mag., XLVIII. 280. Greek philosophy … exhibits a continual contradictive illusion moving before its philosophizings.
† 2. Given to contradiction; contradictious. Obs.
1643. E. Symmons, Loy. Subjects Beliefe, 82. They were of such contradictive spirits, that [etc.].
1673. O. Walker, Educ. (1677), 71. No Nation … (except our late contradictive spirits) that express not their joy and mirth by it [dancing]. Ibid., 295. Neither maintain an argument with contradictive persons.
Hence Contradictively adv., Contradictiveness.
1829. Blackw. Mag., XXVI. 311. This gives a character of contradictiveness to the exhibition.
1842. G. S. Faber, Provinc. Lett. (1844), II. 123. To write contradictively and unintelligibly. Ibid. (1851), Many Mansions (1862), 339. The very same claim is contradictively put forth by his Competitor.
