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polemicize

American  
[puh-lem-uh-sahyz, poh-] / pəˈlɛm əˌsaɪz, poʊ- /
especially British, polemicise

verb (used without object)

polemicized, polemicizing
  1. to practice the art of disputation; to engage in polemics or controversy.


Etymology

Origin of polemicize

First recorded in 1945–50; polemic + -ize

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Your purpose can’t be to polemicize, but to begin a dialogue.

From Salon May 11, 2025

I don’t want to polemicize what makes a country a country, but I think we can all agree it’s more than just a bit of information on an external drive floating around aimlessly somewhere.

From Slate Nov. 16, 2017

Altman, by contrast, feels free to polemicize in the more receptive atmosphere that Miller helped create.

From Time Magazine Archive

One of the key words in the contemporary lexicon is “performative,” which functions in the more heavily polemicized zones of the internet as a fancy synonym for “insincere.”

From New York Times Dec. 7, 2021

Skeptics have long theorized and polemicized about the phenomenon without producing a fully convincing natural explanation.*

From Time Magazine Archive

The image of Ginsberg that vividly emerges is that of an angry, bushily bearded man, polemicizing about corporations and the Times’s malign influence, and often breaking out in spiritualist chanting, all to Hujar’s profound disinterest.

From The Wall Street Journal Nov. 6, 2025

Over time, Dayton toned down the rhetoric; rather than polemicizing about blood-stained roads, he encouraged other scientists to “carefully and conscientiously amass the facts and findings.”

From Slate May 25, 2024

Even before the adoption of the Book of Confutation, Strigel had been polemicizing against Flacius.

From Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church by Bente, F. (Friedrich)

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