fractious
1
9.9
- adjective
- /ˈfrakshəs/
:
incontrolable
- I hope that Armento's agenda is taken seriously and is realized in the fractious social studies universe.
Examples
-
It might not be as drastically immovable as a tree, but a tree could not bite and kick a fallen man to death, as a fractious nusk or cabo could.
Fiction book (1990) -
So in the German post-war constitution, they created a system that is far less fractious.
Blog text (1) -
Against an Arab dictator's fractious country.
Blog text (6) -
She lowered her head, stretched her neck out, and stalked in a half-crouch toward the fractious river.
Fiction book (1994) -
For others, Israeli discontent results from a fractious political system ridden with mediocre leadership and savage infighting.
Academic text (1998) -
The team's fractious behavior made it challenging for the group to reach a consensus.
-
In the fractious meeting, several members argued loudly, making it hard to stick to the agenda.
-
The software's fractious nature led to frequent crashes during critical operations.
Synonyms
77
7.0
Likely to change suddenly and become more dangerous
41
4.3
Difficult to control and messy or noisy
34
6.6
Full of confusion and disorder among people, politics, or events
10
4.3
Not safe because it might fail or break
9
7.2
A system where small changes cause very different results that are hard to predict
Antonyms
How Unpredictable
Surface Forms
Morphology
fractious = fracture (opaque) = fract + ious
Formed from the Latin combining form 'fract-' plus the adjectival suffix '-ious'; the combining form is not a productive standalone English base and the technical sense 'unpredictable/difficult to control' is not directly inferable from 'break'.
Etymology
Fractious comes from a root that means 'to break', like the root in fracture and fraction. So a machine or system called fractious is unstable or likely to 'break' or fail, making it unpredictable and hard to manage.