contrary
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
On the contrary, he has a long public record of being nasty to her in public, often — though not always — disguising his cruelty as “jokes.”
From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2026
He said: "It is my view that this ruling runs contrary to the parliament's clear intention behind the FOI Act."
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Ward concluded that the state was not obligated to offer a different method of execution.
From Slate ● Aug. 25, 2026
Asked whether he expected the situation to improve, Blume said "on the contrary, we have to assume that risks will get worse, worldwide".
From Barron's ● Aug. 23, 2026
“I think it’s handsome,” Cari said, contrary as ever.
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
We grow up to discover there are names in every culture for that — yin and yang, the Apollonian and Dionysian, Vishnu and Shiva, thesis and antithesis, the law of contraries, the dialectic.
From New York Times ● Feb. 12, 2024
Art is made of contraries, of ambivalence and ambiguity; it never wants us to feel a single thing.
From The Guardian ● May 8, 2020
She revels in detail but writes vast, moral poems that help us live in a world of contraries in which “we hold still for the camera, believing/ it will shore up time, knowing it won’t.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 11, 2016
“The knowledge of contraries is one and the same,” as Aristotle said.
From Slate ● Jul. 8, 2014
Those who are to be unhappy, think and speak only of the contraries.
From The Life of Benjamin Franklin With Many Choice Anecdotes and admirable sayings of this great man never before published by any of his biographers by Mason Locke Weems
Vocabulary lists containing contrary
Opposites Attract
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Against All Odds: Contra and Counter
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"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, Chapters 16–19
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