(v. t.) To contend for in words or arguments; to strive to maintain by reasoning; to dispute; to contest; to discuss; to argue for and against.
(v. i.) To engage in strife or combat; to fight.
(v. i.) To contend in words; to dispute; hence, to deliberate; to consider; to discuss or examine different arguments in the mind; -- often followed by on or upon.
(v. t.) A fight or fighting; contest; strife.
(v. t.) Contention in words or arguments; discussion for the purpose of elucidating truth or influencing action; strife in argument; controversy; as, the debates in Parliament or in Congress.
(v. t.) Subject of discussion.
Example Sentences:
(1) In a debate in the House of Commons, I will ask Britain, the US and other allies to convert generalised offers of help into more practical support with greater air cover, military surveillance and helicopter back-up, to hunt down the terrorists who abducted the girls.
(2) In attacking the motion to freeze the licence fee during today's Parliamentary debate the culture secretary, Andy Burnham, criticised the Tory leader.
(3) Amid the acrimony of the failed debate on the Malaysia Agreement, something was missed or forgotten: many in the left had changed their mind.
(4) The first experiment gave good results, although only one participant had any previous experience of hinge axis location, and it is debatable whether or not this experience is necessary before satisfactory results can be obtained.
(5) She said that even as she approached the gates, she was debating with the boy’s father whether to let the first-grader enter.
(6) But because current donor contributions are not sufficient to cover the thousands of schools in need of security, I will ask in the commons debate that the UK government allocates more.
(7) In a poll before the debate, 48% predicted that Merkel, who will become Europe's longest serving leader if re-elected on 22 September, would emerge as the winner of the US-style debate, while 26% favoured Steinbruck, a former finance minister who is known for his quick-wit and rhetorical skills, but sometimes comes across as arrogant.
(8) Conservative commentators responded with fury to what they believed was inappropriate meddling at a crucial moment in the town hall debate.
(9) The citizenship debate is tawdry, conflated and ultimately pointless | Richard Ackland Read more On Wednesday, the prime minister criticised lawyers for backing terrorists.
(10) While there has been almost no political reform during their terms of office, there have been several ambitious steps forward in terms of environmental policy: anti-desertification campaigns; tree planting; an environmental transparency law; adoption of carbon targets; eco-services compensation; eco accounting; caps on water; lower economic growth targets; the 12th Five-Year Plan; debate and increased monitoring of PM2.5 [fine particulate matter] and huge investments in eco-cities, "clean car" manufacturing, public transport, energy-saving devices and renewable technology.
(11) All 17 candidates are going to be participating in debate night and I think that’s a wonderful opportunity Reince Priebus Republican party officials have defended the decision to limit participation, pointing out that the chasing pack will get a chance to debate separately before the main event.
(12) "Medical professionals have perhaps been the least involved [of all sectors] in debates and discussions around abortion, and anti-choice groups have very effectively carried out a deliberate strategy of targeting and influencing health professionals.
(13) The only thing the media will talk about in the hours and days after the debate will be Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the results of the election, making him appear small, petty and conspiratorial.
(14) Opposition to legal abortion takes magical thinking and a lack of logic | Jessica Valenti Read more The only female Republican candidate for the White House has doubled down on her restrictive position over reproductive rights since a successful debate performance .
(15) Although the debate in the US has led to some piecemeal reforms – including the USA Freedom Act and modest policy changes – many of the most intrusive government surveillance programs remain largely intact.
(16) The debate certainly hit upon a larger issue: the tendency for people in positions of social and cultural power to tell the stories of minorities for them, rather than allowing minority communities to speak for themselves.
(17) On the mothers' internet forum Mumsnet, 44% of women who voted in a post-debate survey said they were now thinking of voting Lib Dem, compared with 23% three weeks ago.
(18) Both a voter and Cooper repeatedly asked him if he stood by his comments in the last Republican presidential debate when he insisted that was the case.
(19) Before the debate, most of our focus group expected David Cameron to win narrowly “because he’s best at debates”.
(20) The treatment of hypertension in pregnancy has been a matter of debate, but the treatment of choice in late pregnancy is delivery.
Vernacular
Definition:
(a.) Belonging to the country of one's birth; one's own by birth or nature; native; indigenous; -- now used chiefly of language; as, English is our vernacular language.
(n.) The vernacular language; one's mother tongue; often, the common forms of expression in a particular locality.
Example Sentences:
(1) The perception that high-achieving businesswomen are more vulnerable than their male counterparts to being abruptly fired – pushed off the "glass cliff" in the contemporary corporate vernacular – has been borne out by a new study from a global management consultancy.
(2) "Counter to the notion of modernity as an all-consuming phenomenon," say the curators, the youngest of the bunch aged 30, "a study of our everyday interiors reveals a vernacular architecture in which it seems that modernity itself is being consumed and absorbed."
(3) For each species listed, the family, the botanical name, the voucher specimen number, the vernacular name, the pharmacological and therapeutical properties are given.
(4) Its dictionary definition is “a Scots word meaning scrotum, in Scots vernacular a term of endearment but in English could be taken as an insult”.
(5) His adrenalin-pumping shows are woven into American life, yet subvert its capitalist fundamentals, that innate American principle of screw-thy-neighbour, in favour of what he insists to be "real" America – working class, militant, street-savvy, tough but romantic, nomadic but with roots – compiled into what feels like a single epic but vernacular rock-opera lasting four decades.
(6) James is establishing a standard, and he is doing so in a manner that underscores he is a student of political change, not just a parrot of its vernacular.
(7) Twelve medicinal drugs have been identified by chemical investigations and are presented in one table with the vernacular names (in Dari, Pasto and Kati); the origins and the therapeutical uses are listed in another table with their cultural background in pre-Islamic (Greek and Indian medicines) and Islamic pharmacopoeia (Afghano-Persian and Arabian medicines).
(8) Already in 1215 itself the Charter had been translated from Latin into French, the vernacular language of the nobility.
(9) Now, climate change has passed into the vernacular.
(10) Even before Glass was released, there were movements to limit its use, with the term “glasshole” rapidly entering the vernacular.
(11) And I try, recognising the vernacular of the films in which I work, to have some degree of reality within the beautifying forces of that machine.
(12) A therapeutic model of communicative pathology is proposed for children who speak black English vernacular.
(13) Would others see the strength in Jim’s choice of giving up his own name to gift our family that illusive sense of unity or would they believe he was, to use the vernacular , “under the thumb”?
(14) The first was the development of a new approach to crime, or the prospect of it, based on what the policy wonk vernacular calls multi-agency prevention.
(15) The Sex Respect Program may have contributed to more change because it used the student's vernacular and had better visual aids.
(16) Whereas al-Qaida is elitist and detached from ordinary Muslims, Isis tends to be more vernacular in the way it addresses its audience and their grievances and aspirations.
(17) Princes did try to control it and Catholic countries were far worse than the emerging Protestant ones – for whom the vernacular translation of the bible was transforming – but they went with the technological flow.
(18) Their numbers amaze and please me and they still keep coming as new titles are translated and some fresh vernacular markets - Hindi, Vietnamese - open up.
(19) At the end of May, the terms "top kill" and "junk shot" entered the worldwide vernacular , as BP tried to force heavy mud, and later golf balls and bits of tyre through the blow-out preventer.
(20) I use the verb “release” because it’s common vernacular.