Contentious. con. ten. tious. [ kun ten shush]. adjective. [ middle english, from anglo-french, from latin contenti? sus]. 1. likely to make someone argue. 2. involving a lot of arguing. 3. willing to argue or disagree. use the dictionary entry for contentious to answer the questions below. how many syllables does the word have? what is the word's part of speech? what is the origin of the word? which definition is the most common? which syllable is stressed?