controversially

Updated: May 21, 2025

Keim must be of weight, but on the whole I think it will be safest and fairest to say that, while the round assertion that the author of the Epistle was ignorant of our Gospel is not justified, the positive evidence that he made use of it is not sufficiently clear to be pressed controversially.

William Sanday - The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

Here the hickory stick broke in two, and the two brands fell controversially out and apart on the hearth, scattering the ashes and coals, and calling for Jenny and the hearth-brush.

Harriet Beecher Stowe - Household Papers and Stories

Not being written controversially, the statements are not as categorical as those of the later writers. Their letters are for the encouragement of the believers.

Annie Besant - Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries

Now, with that version, in any case of controversy, none of us, Protestants alike or Roman Catholics, have anything whatever to do. Controversially, we can be concerned only with the original language of the Scriptures, with its actual verbal expressions textually produced. To be liable, therefore, to such a textual citation, any Greek word must belong to the New Testament.

Thomas De Quincey - Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 1

But even those who prefer the dénoûment of George Sand's novel to that of M. Feuillet's will not rank Mademoiselle La Quintinie very high among the author's productions. It is colorless, and artistically weak, however controversially strong. Madame Sand, according to her own reckoning in 1869, had made at least £40,000 by her writings. Out of this she had saved no fortune.

Bertha Thomas - Famous Women: George Sand

I can remember a dinner-party at his house, where a great tumult arose over some abrupt statement of his made to the High Church wife of a well-known Professor. Pater had been in some way pressed controversially beyond the point of wisdom, and had said suddenly that no reasonable person could govern his life by the opinions or actions of a man who died eighteen centuries ago.

Mrs. Humphry Ward - A Writer's Recollections — Volume 1

I said: "You know that that is a forbidden topic." "Yes, but I am not going to speak controversially." I said: "Say on." He said: "What do you think of Grant's election?" I said: "I think he will be elected." He held up his hands, and in a tone of grief said: "You and Wilson are the only ones who tell me that he has any chance."

George S. (George Sewall) Boutwell - Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2

Now let it be simply understood that I am not writing controversially, but with the one object of relating things as they happened to me in the course of my conversion.

John Henry Newman - Apologia pro Vita Sua