Contentieux

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. A legal term referring to matters or disputes concerning litigation or legal claims
2. relating specifically to sections of law that address contentious issues
3. describing situations marked by disagreement that require legal resolution

Etymology: This French adjective comes from the Latin verb "contendere", which combined "com-" ("together") with "tendere" ("to stretch"). Its original sense was something like straining against one another. The same stretching root gives English "tend" and "tension", and "contend" is the English descendant that kept the sense of striving or competing. The Latin adjective "contentiosus" shifted from that physical image toward quarrelling. In French the word is mostly a legal term. A "contentieux" matter is one where the parties actually disagree, as opposed to an uncontested one. The noun "le contentieux" names the whole body of disputed cases, or the office that handles them, so the sense "open to dispute" is its core meaning: a question that has not yet been settled.

Synonyms: litigious, disputatious, argumentative, controversial

Antonyms: agreeable, amicable, harmonious, peaceful