An informal and spirited but generally civil discussion of opposing views.
Used in a Sentence
debates
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for debates.
Editorial note
His essay more about style rather than grammar, which means it's not really taking part in the (de- vs pre-)scriptivist debates in the first place.
Examples16
Definitions4
Parts of speech1
Quick take
An informal and spirited but generally civil discussion of opposing views.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of debates gathered in one view.
(uncountable) Discussion of opposing views.
An argument, or discussion, usually in an ordered or formal setting, often with more than two people, generally ending with a vote or other decision.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for debates.
noun
An informal and spirited but generally civil discussion of opposing views.
noun
(uncountable) Discussion of opposing views.
noun
An argument, or discussion, usually in an ordered or formal setting, often with more than two people, generally ending with a vote or other decision.
noun
(frequently in the French form débat) A type of literary composition, taking the form of a discussion or disputation, commonly found in the vernacular medieval poetry of many European countries, as well as in medieval Latin.
Example sentences
His essay more about style rather than grammar, which means it's not really taking part in the (de- vs pre-)scriptivist debates in the first place.
In fact, what makes that hacker ethos so important is exactly why it is important to engage in these debates.
When someone ignores, prohibits or shame a field using name-calling and fallacious axioms, arguments/debates are irrelevant and you have to run.
I was curious if the pending employment law debates and changes were going to impact their valuation, it appears not.
Mexico is the target of immigration debates because it's the U.
(yes, there are many counterpoints to my argument, but starting debates is more interesting than spewing out platitudes.
Think about the Clinton I debates on what the meaning of 'is' is.
PHP is worse than a functional language (you can write functional code in Python and PHP btw) and you are the winning lord of programming languages debates!
As a mixed African-American raised around multiple different ethnicities, my brother and I have had many heated debates about the usage of the word.
At the risk of sparking off-topic debates about Netflix's content selections...are the same event streaming/data processing frameworks also used to detect trends and make actions on the content/frontpage side?
Before Google went to China, there were debates within the company: not over whether there was money to be made, but whether they would be a force for good there.
These debates are meaningless because creating a system penalising people for creating something that solves their own problems with no external reference is being made a crime and hurting business.
Quote examples
More and more political debates have turned to a battle of "framing" rather than actually debating the positive and negative sides of some action (or inaction).
"...never any ill will or desire to humiliate anybody" - this is the sort of very flimsy faux-naivity that I come to expect in these debates - especially on technical forums with a very literal-thinking crowd.
I don't usually do "not invented here", but there are so many very obvious things that can go wrong, and so may ways users need to change what they do, that I think debates about air traffic control are a long way down the list of show-stopper issues that need (literally) bullet-proof solutions.
Humanities research often tends to get mocked in debates on public funding: "Why are we, the taxpayers, paying this person to go look through archives in Germany looking for fragments of music by Robert Schumann?" The humanities do not, in general, have "practical application," at least if practical application means monetary value (as it often does).
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use debates in a sentence?
His essay more about style rather than grammar, which means it's not really taking part in the (de- vs pre-)scriptivist debates in the first place.
What does debates mean?
An informal and spirited but generally civil discussion of opposing views.
What part of speech is debates?
debates is commonly used as noun.