argument
- 01 A2 Elementary
an angry disagreement or fight between people using words.
a verbal dispute or quarrel between individuals, often involving heated emotion.
Simple“My neighbors had a loud argument about where to park their car.”
In context“The couple had a heated argument regarding their financial priorities, which resulted in neither party speaking to the other for several days.”
PitfallI had an argument to my brother. I had an argument with my brother.Use the preposition 'with' to indicate the person you are arguing against.
- 02 B1 Intermediate
a set of reasons you use to show that your opinion is right.
a coherent series of reasons, statements, or facts intended to support or establish a point of view.
Simple“The writer presents a strong argument for why we should protect the oceans.”
In context“The defense attorney constructed a compelling argument based on forensic evidence to prove his client's innocence.”
- 03 C1 Advanced
a value or piece of information given to a computer program or a math function.
an independent variable or a value passed to a function or routine to affect its operation.
Simple“The function requires a number as an argument to calculate the total.”
In context“The script failed because the developer passed a string as an argument when the method expected an integer.”
UsageIn programming, 'argument' refers to the actual value passed, while 'parameter' refers to the variable defined in the function.
- 04 C2 Proficiency
a word or phrase that completes the meaning of a verb.
any of the phrases that bear a specific syntactic or semantic relationship to the verb in a clause.
Simple“In the sentence 'He ate an apple', 'an apple' is an argument of the verb.”
In context“The professor explained that certain verbs require two arguments to form a grammatically complete sentence.”
Synonyms
argument vs discussion — An argument involves conflict or a heated disagreement, while a discussion is a neutral exchange of ideas.
argument vs quarrel — An argument can be a logical case or a disagreement, while a quarrel is always a heated, emotional conflict.
Usage detailed argument · following argument · strengthen argument
Etymology tree Latin arguō Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥ Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥tom Proto-Italic *-məntom Latin -mentum Latin argūmentumder. Anglo-Norman arguementbor. Middle English argument English argument From Middle English argument, from Anglo-Norman and Old French arguement, from Latin argumentum. The English word is analysable as argue + -ment. Doublet of argumentum. Displaced native Old English racu and ġeflit.
Etymology tree Latin arguō Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥ Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥tom Proto-Italic *-məntom Latin -mentum Latin argūmentum Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin argūmentorder. Old French argumenterbor. Middle English argumenten English argument The obsolete senses are derived from Middle English argumenten (“to argue, discuss; to consider, reflect”), from Old French argumenter (“to argue”), from Latin argūmentārī (“to adduce arguments or proof, prove, reason; to adduce (something) as argument or proof; to conclude”), from argūmentum (“argument (for a position); evidence, proof; point, theme; thesis, topic; plot (in theatre)”) (see further at etymology 1) + -or (the first-person singular present passive indicative of -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)). The current sense is derived from the noun.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.