adjective

• 1Showing or feeling active opposition or hostility towards someone or something.

  ‘he was antagonistic to the government's reforms’

  More example sentences

  • ‘an antagonistic group of bystanders’
  • ‘It is no longer possible for any section of the global population to cling to a system of thinking that is uncompromisingly antagonistic to the thinking of others.’
  • ‘He was rude and antagonistic to my friends, kept picking arguments and was often deliberately provocative, manipulating people into tense arguments.’
  • ‘It recognizes that politics must have an underlying morality to it, but it is antagonistic to traditional morality.’
  • ‘Nor are most Australians of Irish descent (partial or complete) antagonistic to Britain.’
  • ‘The capitalist profit motive is antagonistic to public health, preferring to treat illness rather than preventing it.’
  • ‘I was disappointed that our elected representative was so antagonistic to councillors who were working hard to resolve the dispute.’
  • ‘It is deeply rooted in place and profoundly antagonistic to market values.’
  • ‘I am left wondering what moves people to be so antagonistic to two beautiful and harmless wild creatures.’
  • ‘But in Britain and the US many people feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards the mainstream popular resistance.’
  • ‘The commission on men may well die on the vine from being stacked with members who are antagonistic to, or ignorant of, men's issues.’
  • ‘In the future we might have a Government that is pretty antagonistic to the aid community, and is running some rather strange foreign policy agendas.’
  • ‘Although antagonistic to this cultural heritage, their critiques can themselves be said to assume a national frame.’
  • ‘I have often wondered why so many theologians are keen on the very writers who are most overtly antagonistic to Christianity.’
  • ‘These two communities are often antagonistic to each other, and I think that may be because they do not understand each other.’
  • ‘Some students have trouble coping with friends or family members who are antagonistic to their teaching aspirations.’
  • ‘Their attitudes concerning poetry and its function in life are different, sometimes even antagonistic to one another.’
  • ‘Greek city-states were fiercely independent and often profoundly antagonistic to their immediate Greek neighbours.’
  • ‘The ceremony at the square was watched by more than three thousand people, including many who had been so antagonistic to him.’
  • ‘Would any of the societies be antagonistic to each other?’
  • ‘Lutheranism developed in two different directions, somewhat antagonistic to one another.’

  Synonyms

  hostile, opposed, inimical, antipathetic, unsympathetic, ill-disposed, resistant, averse

  hostile, aggressive, belligerent, bellicose, pugnacious, combative, contentious, truculent, confrontational, quarrelsome, argumentative

  View synonyms

• 2Biochemistry Physiology
  Relating to an antagonist or its action.

  ‘Furthermore, an antagonistic effect of added amino acids, such as glutamine, on sucrose-induced GS expression was observed.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The arms are an important means of defence of our vulnerable points, including the head, chest, and abdomen, as well as of antagonistic connections to others.’
  • ‘This is compatible with a genuine antagonistic action of the drugs during their gradual diffusion and washout.’
  • ‘Such an antagonistic effect of UVA could potentially explain much of the controversy.’
  • ‘It has both agonistic actions and weak opioid antagonistic activity.’