tendentious
adjective
William FinneganVirginia Heffernan
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Tendentious is one of several words English speakers can choose when they want to suggest that someone has made up their mind in advance. You may be partial to predisposed or prone to favor partisan, but whatever your leanings, we’re inclined to think you’ll benefit from adding tendentious to your repertoire. Tendentious is a relatively recent arrival to English, considering its Latin roots. In the latter half of the 19th century, English users took the Latinate stem tendenti- (from tendentia, meaning “tendency”) and combined it with the familiar adjective suffix -ious to form a word describing someone with a tendency to favor a particular point of view, motivated by an intent to promote a particular cause.
Examples of tendentious in a Sentence
Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 9 Jan. 2024
The memorial also mentions several Jewish victims of Arab robberies and 13 Jews who were killed in British bombing raids on Palestine during World War I. Palestinian historiography and commemorative culture rely on a similarly tendentious use of history.
—Tom Segev, Foreign Affairs, 23 Apr. 2024
Critics, again mostly Republicans, weighed in again with tendentious lectures on social media about the moral imperative of meeting one’s obligation to pay back a loan.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr. 2024
But the film ends on a tendentious and discordant note that detracts from the whole.
—The Editors, National Review, 5 Apr. 2024
See all Example Sentences for tendentious 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tendentious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near tendentious
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“Tendentious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tendentious. Accessed 14 Jul. 2024.
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