Definition of "disputation" [dis•pu•ta•tion]

• The act of disputing; debate. (noun)
• An academic exercise consisting of a formal debate or an oral defense of a thesis. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Hitchens loved what he called "disputation" – there was little difference between his public and private speaking styles – and America, a more oral culture than Britain's, offered ample opportunity."
• "The subject of the disputation is not piety, but the motives to piety; that of the description is not God, but the works of God."
• "Note 145: "After he had heard the Ethics many times, comprehending them so thoroughly that his teachers found him hard to cope with in disputation, he studied the Politics assiduously.""