• contrary •
Pronunciation: kahn-trer-ri • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Opposed, counter, extremely divergent. 2. Willful, perverse, tending to be far away from general behavior.
Notes: This word is often confused with opposite. Opposite refers to things that are altogether different, black and white, hot and cold. Contrary just refers to extreme divergence, like conservative and liberal. Contrary comes with an adverb, contrarily, and a noun, contrariness. A contrarian is someone who consistently takes positions that are contrary to that of the majority or of prevailing wisdom.
In Play: Contrary overlaps opposite, but it is not a synonym: "Contrary to widespread belief, I'm not an obnoxious contrarian." It can also describe a personal attitude: "Mama, why are you so contrary? Everything I want you don't like and everything you want me to have, I don't like!"
Word History: Today's Good Word was, as usual, borrowed from Old French contrarie, which descended from Latin contrarius "opposed, contrary", a word built upon the preposition contra "against", originally "as compared with". Latin created contra by combining com- "with" + a metathesized version of -ter, a comparative adjective suffix, found unmetathesized in Latin alter "other (of two)". Latin inherited com (and its preposition cum "with") from PIE k'om "beside, by, with", evidence of which we find in Greek kata "against, down", Russian s(o) "with", Lithuanian su "with" (where PIE [k'] became [s]), Irish chomh "so, as", and Welsh cyn "before". (Now a word of thanks to old-time friend and prolific contributor Chris Stewart for today's tricky Good Word.)
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