Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A discussion in which disagreement is expressed; a debate.
- noun A quarrel; a dispute.
- noun Archaic A reason or matter for dispute or contention.
- noun A course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating truth or falsehood.
- noun A fact or statement put forth as proof or evidence; a reason.
- noun A set of statements in which one follows logically as a conclusion from the others.
- noun A summary or short statement of the plot or subject of a literary work.
- noun A topic; a subject.
- noun Logic The minor premise in a syllogism.
- noun The independent variable of a function.
- noun The angle of a complex number measured from the positive horizontal axis.
- noun Computers A value used to evaluate a procedure or subroutine.
- noun Linguistics A word, phrase, or clause in a semantic relation with a word or phrase and that helps complete the meaning of that word or phrase, such as a noun phrase that is the object of a verb. The clause that we go is an argument of the verb suggest in the sentence I suggest that we go.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To argue; debate; bring forward reasons.
- To make the subject of an argument or debate.
- noun A statement or fact tending to produce belief concerning a matter in doubt; a premise or premises set forth in order to prove an assumption or conclusion.
- noun [This, the familiar meaning of the word, probably originated in Roman law-courts. The usual definition given by Cicero and almost all authorities is ratio rei dubiœ faciens fidem, a reason causing belief of a doubtful matter. Boëtius in one place defines it as a medium proving a conclusion. The word medium here means a premise, or premises, according to all the commentators. (Petrus Hisp., tr. v. ad init.) But since medium usually means the middle term of a syllogism, some logicians have been led to give argument this signification.]
- noun The middle term of a syllogism.
- noun A reasoning; the process by which the connection between that which is or is supposed to be admitted and that which is doubted or supposed to need confirmation is traced or tested.
- noun An address or composition made for the purpose of producing belief or conviction by reasoning or persuasion.
- noun A series of argumentations for and against a proposition; a debate.
- noun The subject-matter or groundwork of a discourse or writing; specifically, an abstract or summary of the chief points in a book or section of a book: as, the arguments prefixed to the several books of “Paradise Lost” were an afterthought.
- noun Matter of contention, controversy, or conversation.
- noun In mathematics: Of an imaginary quantity, the coefficient of the imaginary unit in its logarithm.
- noun The angle or quantity on which a series of numbers in a numerical table depends and with which the table is entered.
- noun When one variable is dependent upon another, the dependent variable is called a function of the other variable, which is then called the argument of the function.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb obsolete To make an argument; to argue.
- noun obsolete Proof; evidence.
- noun A reason or reasons offered in proof, to induce belief, or convince the mind; reasoning expressed in words.
- noun A process of reasoning, or a controversy made up of rational proofs; argumentation; discussion; disputation.
- noun The subject matter of a discourse, writing, or artistic representation; theme or topic; also, an abstract or summary, as of the contents of a book, chapter, poem.
- noun obsolete Matter for question; business in hand.
- noun (Astron.) The quantity on which another quantity in a table depends.
- noun (Math.) The independent variable upon whose value that of a function depends.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
fact orstatement used tosupport aproposition ; areason . - noun A verbal
dispute ; aquarrel . - noun A
process ofreasoning . - noun philosophy, logic A
series ofpropositions organized so that thefinal proposition is aconclusion which isintended tofollow logically from thepreceding propositions, which function aspremises . - noun mathematics The independent variable of a function.
- noun programming A
value , or reference to a value, passed to afunction . - noun programming A
parameter in a function definition; anactual parameter , as opposed to aformal parameter . - noun linguistics Any of the
phrases that bears asyntactic connection to theverb of aclause .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a discussion in which reasons are advanced for and against some proposition or proposal
- noun (computer science) a reference or value that is passed to a function, procedure, subroutine, command, or program
- noun a fact or assertion offered as evidence that something is true
- noun a summary of the subject or plot of a literary work or play or movie
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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From this perspective, Russell's argument might seem akin to the ˜argument™ that calculus has eliminated the variable, because the word does not appear in the equations!
The Metaphysics of Causation Schaffer, Jonathan 2007
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III. i.3 (276,7) [an absent argument] An _argument_ is used for the
Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies Samuel Johnson 1746
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Concerntug the v* - trade* the force of my argument goes no farther than this; — that its Juppftfliou, by the ISrihfli government only, other nations continuing the trade as ufua\ % who would of cotirfe felSC on what we funender, would anfwer the purpofes of humanity, cither to the negroes tn Africa, or to thofe already in the Weft Indies; and I have quoted* in fupport of this opinion, the authoiitiesof men (naval commander! and others) who arc intimately acquainted with the trade, though no ways intended in its continuance; and I have not yet met with any evidence or argument* to Kivtttdate their testimony.
The Monthly Review 1795
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McLaughlin (1984, 1995) calls this style of argumentation ˜argument by appeal to a false implied supervenience thesis™ ” or, for short, argument by appeal to a FIST.
Supervenience McLaughlin, Brian 2005
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The reason this argument is absurd is that it totally ignores the main argument for increasing out-of-pocket health care costs: that people use too much expensive health care when the marginal cost of care is very low.
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Their main argument is if regulations are too tight, the big banks will be less competitive internationally.
Robert Reich: Wall Street's Global Race to the Bottom Robert Reich 2010
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My main argument is this: when an economy is starting from almost zero, high economic growth rates are easy to come by.
China, India and Deflation, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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Taylor's main argument is that our overspecialized colleges and universities are increasingly divorced from the hyper-connected world defined by "webs, not walls."
Michael Roth: Virtuous Circle of Teaching and Research Michael Roth 2010
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One of their main argument is that an 8 team playoff would make the other bowl games meaningless.
Senate hearing probes fairness of Bowl Championship Series 2009
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Next, he main argument is that banks cannot to become ‘To Big to Fail’.
Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » The Argument for More Regulation 2010
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Their collective noun, they say, should be an argument of beekeepers.
Is Beekeeping Wrong? Condé Nast 2023
517774013 commented on the word argument
Monty Python definition: An argument is a series of statements intended to establish a proposition. It isn't just contradiction.
February 19, 2010