What's the difference between belligerent and contentious?

Belligerent


Definition:

  • (p. pr.) Waging war; carrying on war.
  • (p. pr.) Pertaining, or tending, to war; of or relating to belligerents; as, a belligerent tone; belligerent rights.
  • (n.) A nation or state recognized as carrying on war; a person engaged in warfare.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He could be the target of more punishing wit, as when Michael Foot, noting a tendency to be tougher abroad than at home, called him "a belligerent Bertie Wooster without even a Jeeves to restrain him."
  • (2) Though the exercises have given the US a chance to vent its frustration at what appears to be state-sponsored espionage and theft on an industrial scale, China has been belligerent.
  • (3) As well as George Dyer, there was the murderer Perry Smith in the Truman Capote story Infamous, the hot-headed mobster child-killer in Road To Perdition, the brooding Ted Hughes in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sylvia biopic and a belligerent Mossad assassin in Steven Spielberg’s Munich.
  • (4) This plays into the widespread belief that Muslims are under attack from a belligerent west and its local proxies.
  • (5) In international affairs he has found the only posture more dangerous than belligerence – incoherence.
  • (6) The belligerence of 7 patients who had suffered an acute brain insult was effectively controlled by propranolol in doses of 60 to 320 mg per day.
  • (7) However, despite the country’s belligerent behaviour in the region and its egregious human rights record, which have long left it isolated, there is an opportunity for engagement given that prominent regime officials have indicated a willingness to reform.
  • (8) Asked about the status of his own job, the press secretary joked “I’m right here”, telling reporters, in a belligerent line that could have been uttered by his impersonator Melissa McCarthy: “You can keep taking your selfies.” The president was busy sowing confusion by trying a new passive-aggressive tone on Twitter , musing: “While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out.
  • (9) Despite the pro-AV leader, Ed Miliband, having stuck his neck out a few times for the yeses, belligerent turns by grumpy old stagers such as John Reid and David Blunkett have created the impression that the people's party has no interest in giving the people more of a say.
  • (10) To avoid this, women in high executive office often assume a corporate persona that overcompensates by being either brittle and defensive, or Thatcher-esque in terms of belligerence.
  • (11) European commission upgrades growth forecast for UK economy Read more Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said: “The initial belligerence of the Trump administration towards China and Japan appears to have given way to a more practicable way of doing things, and while peace may not have broken out quite yet, some welcome pragmatism does appear to be taking hold in Washington.
  • (12) Mattis pointedly warned North Korea to back off, pledging an “overwhelming” response to any belligerence .
  • (13) Germany's bureaucratic stasis contrasts with a welter of events, official and unofficial, digital, public and private, in the other former belligerent countries.
  • (14) For the highest purpose of a democratic government is to bring a society together and hold it together, not to divide it with fears, with rumours of wars, with acts of belligerence against other and then against its own.
  • (15) But if the odd local blog bristles that us lot should “go back where we came from”, the antipathy to immigrants from farther away ( 8.59% of the local population, according to a recent Oxford University study ; far lower than the 12.5% national average) is much stronger: especially to the eastern Europeans, many of whom have landed in scruffy parts of Cliftonville, where they have belligerently set about opening shops and car washes, and trying to get on with their lives.
  • (16) Five and a half decades of history show us that such belligerence inhibits better judgement.
  • (17) The White House condemned the attack as "belligerent", adding: "The United States is firmly committed to the defence of our ally … and to the maintenance of regional peace and stability."
  • (18) Clapper described the threats from Pyongyang as "very belligerent" and said he is "very concerned about the actions of the new young leader", Kim Jong-un .
  • (19) Israeli voters – including Labourites disillusioned by what they saw as Palestinian mendacity and belligerency – felt drawn to the old warrior.
  • (20) These conciliatory tactics did not immediately appeal to Thatcher, though she learned to swallow her belligerence.

Contentious


Definition:

  • (a.) Fond of contention; given to angry debate; provoking dispute or contention; quarrelsome.
  • (a.) Relating to contention or strife; involving or characterized by contention.
  • (a.) Contested; litigated; litigious; having power to decide controversy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Republicans remain wary of a contentious debate on the divisive issue, which could anger their core voters and undercut potential electoral gains in the November elections when control of Congress will be at stake.
  • (2) How to administer the fund is another contentious area.
  • (3) They make a big deal when it happens, and then they forget.” The use of sarin has been highly contentious throughout the Syrian war.
  • (4) The election in the capital of the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation has been deeply contentious.
  • (5) I can only say, we want to do more in terms of research and we obviously want to support our scientists.” NCRIS is not specifically mentioned in the contentious higher education bill that the Senate will debate next week.
  • (6) I’ve never had a black person or a brown person ever say anything bad about me.” Then he proceeded to make fresh contentious comments, first by repeating the comparison between slavery and welfare dependence: “Receiving welfare and housing – is that a sense of slavery when you get caught up in that and can’t get out of it for generations?
  • (7) Garcia, who sought to interview all 22 executive committee members who made the contentious decision to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar but found some who are no longer in football beyond his reach, delivered his report this month.
  • (8) The Jedwabne massacre and Kaminski's line that "Jews should say sorry for killing Poles" during the second world war is by far the most important of the many contentious issues on this man.
  • (9) Samuel Wurzelbacher, who became famous during the 2008 election as “Joe the Plumber” after he had a heated discussion with Obama on the campaign trail, was championed by presidential nominee John McCain but later made contentious remarks such as a call to “put a damn fence on the border going to Mexico and start shooting”.
  • (10) Southern said on Tuesday it would reinstate travel passes for staff and allow them to swap shifts, reversing two contentious moves following strike action.
  • (11) Meanwhile, MPs in Athens approved the contentious reforms and austerity package demanded by its creditors amid angry scenes in parliament and violent clashes on the streets on Wednesday.
  • (12) Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, has resigned, formally setting off what will be a contentious election to replace him.
  • (13) There is a growing conviction that medical technologies are major contributors to escalating costs, and regulating them is generally viewed as the least contentious way to control expenses in the 1980's.
  • (14) The contentious position is set to be waved into the final EU negotiating position by consensus.
  • (15) But this later proved contentious because the reserve appeared to preclude any resettlement of the atolls by islanders whose families had been evicted in 1965 to make way for a giant US air force base.
  • (16) The treasurer Joe Hockey has hinted the government might be prepared to shift ground on its insistence that a crucial $150m research funding extension hinges on the passage of contentious legislation to deregulate university fees.
  • (17) Business rates have long been a contentious issue among retailers, who argue the system penalises high street premises and unfairly benefits online retailers.
  • (18) Osborne also envisages “demonstrating the concept” of safe fracking by “focusing on a small number of sites in less contentious locations” including “public sector land (particularly MOD owned)”.
  • (19) Trump is an isolationist so the Chinese are going to see that as an opportunity to keep strengthening their position and their role in the region.” Delury said Trump was also likely to ditch the highly contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which under Obama had been “a centrepiece of an American resurgence of its role in Asia”.
  • (20) Political distortion And in all of this, Brooks consistently injected a highly contentious political ideology into the arteries of public debate, a toxic cocktail of crude populism and intellectual confusion.