adversarial

adjective

ad·ver·sar·i·al | \ ˌad-vər-ˈser-ē-əl

, ˌad-və-, -ˈse-rē- \

Definition of adversarial

: involving two people or two sides who oppose each other : of, relating to, or characteristic of an adversary or adversary procedures (see adversary entry 2 sense 2) an adversarial relationship an adversarial system of justice with prosecution and defense opposing each other

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Examples of adversarial in a Sentence

an adversarial system of justice with prosecution and defense opposing each other the relationship between the president and the congress should not be adversarial if anything is to get done

Recent Examples on the Web The 24-hour rule is at the center of a system hamstrung by arcane and needlessly adversarial legal requirements that cast people with mental illnesses as criminals, and doctors as their captors. — Meg Kissinger, jsonline.com, 31 Aug. 2021 Some White House officials believed Netanyahu would resume his adversarial stance with Biden. — Kevin Liptak, CNN, 27 Aug. 2021 And the fragile cooperation between U.S. and Taliban commanders is already fraying, and the two could easily revert to their adversarial stances. — Compiled Democrat-gazette Staff From Wire Reports, Arkansas Online, 27 Aug. 2021 Former Oakland police Chief Howard Jordan, who presided over the department from 2011 to 2013, during one of the most adversarial periods of the settlement, has his doubts. — Rachel Swan, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 Aug. 2021 With so many losses caused by the pandemic, U.S. litigants have a powerful incentive to bring cases, prosecute them aggressively, and test liability through adversarial presentation. — Mike Pompeo And David B. Rivkin Jr., WSJ, 26 Aug. 2021 And the fragile cooperation between US and Taliban commanders is already fraying, and the two could easily revert to their adversarial stances. — BostonGlobe.com, 25 Aug. 2021 The commitment process had become as adversarial as a murder trial. — Meg Kissinger, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 Aug. 2021 Others have turned to unauthorized and adversarial data collection, scraping data from sites such as Gab and Parler to understand the spread of misinformation and disinformation on sites actively hostile toward researchers studying those topics. — Ethan Zuckerman, The Atlantic, 6 Aug. 2021

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'adversarial.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.