pugnacious

Borrowed from Latin, from a derivative of pugnāx, from pugnō (“I fight”), from pugnus (“fist”).

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /pʌɡˈneɪ.ʃəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪʃəs

pugnacious (comparative more pugnacious, superlative most pugnacious)

1. Naturally aggressive or hostile; combative; belligerent; bellicose.
   • 1858, Anthony Trollope, chapter 3, in Dr Thorne:

     Not that the doctor was a bully, or even pugnacious, in the usual sense of the word; he had no disposition to provoke a fight, no propense love of quarrelling.

   • 1904, Jack London, chapter 15, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC:

     As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty.

   • 2003, Ken Follett, Hornet Flight‎^[1], →ISBN, pages 249–250:

     In the face of bad news Churchill normally became even more pugnacious, always wanting to respond to defeat by going on the attack.

   • 2014 October 21, Oliver Brown, “Oscar Pistorius jailed for five years – sport afforded no protection against his tragic fallibilities: Bladerunner's punishment for killing Reeva Steenkamp is but a frippery when set against the burden that her bereft parents, June and Barry, must carry [print version: No room for sentimentality in this tragedy, 13 September 2014, p. S22]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Sport)‎^[2]:

     [I]n the 575 days since [Oscar] Pistorius shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, there has been an unseemly scramble to construct revisionist histories, to identify evidence beneath that placid exterior of a pugnacious, hair-trigger personality.

   • 2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 29:50 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?‎^[3], archived from the original on 3 November 2022:

     Of course the Johnston swings around to engage the entire flotilla, and, despite taking several more hits, Johnston successfully forces away the first two ships, which leads to the entire squadron taking a detour to avoid the single pugnacious ship.

• See also Thesaurus:combative

• pugnaciously

• impugn
• poniard
• pugilism
• pugnacity
• repugn
• repugnant