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Definition
combative in tone (as though ready to fight)- The pugnacious Congressman was in no mood to compromise.
pugnacious = combative in tone (as though ready to fight)
- Nicknamed, "The Pit Bull", he is known as a pugnacious supporter of workers' rights.
- For Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus' retirement; he wanted to have the battle out.Plato -- The Republic
- In the light from the dashboard, I see his jaw stiffen, a momentarily pugnacious look.Tracy Kidder -- Mountains Beyond Mountains
- So pugnacious, you uglies.Scott Westerfeld -- Uglies
- They moved their heads pugnaciously and kept their shoulders braced.Stephen Crane -- Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
- His prosperous-looking belly that used to thrust out so pugnaciously and intimidate folks, sagged like a load suspended from his loins.Zora Neale Hurston -- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- His glance was at once calculating and pugnacious.John Steinbeck -- Of Mice and Men
- The latter was a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious face.Arthur Conan Doyle -- The Hound of the Baskervilles
- Pete, a tiger-striped tom weighing fifteen pounds, is a well-known character around Garden City, famous for his pugnacity, which was the cause of his current hospitalization; a battle lost to a boxer dog had left him with wounds necessitating both stitches and antibiotics.Truman Capote -- In Cold Blood
- I catch only glimpses of him as the forest of grownups sway and shift in front of me, but I can make out the well-oiled, slicked-down, coal-black hair, and the pugnacious face, the wrinkled and baggy suit, the kind the men at the courthouse have on when you go beg the judge to let your daddy out of jail.Rick Bragg -- All Over but the Shoutin'
- I never saw you so pugnacious before, mother.Barrie, James Matthew -- Margaret Ogilvy
- pugnacious spirits...lamented that there was so little prospect of an exhilarating disturbance
- He put his hand in his pocket, failed to find what he wanted, and rushing past me went blundering noisily and pugnaciously downstairs.H.G. Wells -- The Invisible Man
- I rise; "Fight," I cry, "fight!" remembering the shape of my own nose, and strike with this spoon upon this table pugnaciously.'Virginia Woolf -- The Waves
- [secretly daunted, but rising from his knees with an air of reckless pugnacity] I ain't afraid of you.George Bernard Shaw -- Man And Superman
- He told Hamidullah to cheer up, all would end well; and Ham idullah did cheer up, and became pugnacious and sensible.E.M. Forster -- A Passage to India
- In Hope the effect is apparent only in a bristling, touchy, pugnacious attitude.Eugene O'Neill -- The Iceman Cometh
- "An evil day to receive a beautiful woman," The Admiral said, his voice surprisingly mild and mannered to issue from such a pugnacious face.Pat Frank -- Alas, Babylon
- As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty.Jack London -- Sea Wolf
pugnacious = combative (ready to fight)
pugnacious = combative in tone (as though ready to fight)
pugnacious = combative in tone (as though ready to fight)
pugnaciously = in a combative manner (as though ready to fight)
pugnaciously = in a manner that looked ready for a fight
pugnacious = combative in tone (as though ready to fight)
pugnacious = seemingly combative (as though ready to fight)
pugnacity = combativeness
pugnacious = combative (as though ready to fight)