English

Alternative forms

• argumenta ad hominem

Noun

argumentums ad hominem pl

1. (informal, rare) plural of argumentum ad hominem
   • 1790: Fulke Greville, Reflection: A Poem, in Four Cantos…, p134

     To go at all largely into this conſideration would much exceed the limits of even one of my own notes; (oh, how my argumentums ad hominem would deal about them, were I inclined (as I am not at all) to let them looſe, gentlemen, among you!)

   • 1977: University of Melbourne, Meanjin, p46

     Four pages of polemic, ridicule, rhetoric, innuendo, calumny, detraction, contumely, begging of questions, a prioris, argumentums ad hominem, pathetic fallacies, ignoratio elenchis, undistributed middles… (regaining thread) Not even Kendall’s finest lyric achievement is safe from Grigsby’s flailing haymakers and knees to the groin.

   • 1998: “Reina 616”, rec.arts.movies.current-films (Google group): GOOD WILL HUNTING is absolutely terrific!, the 26^th day of August at 8 o’clock a.m.

     I would have no quarrel with the above. If someone DISAGREES it’s one thing. But people go further and tell me I’m WRONG, dead wrong, tasteless, lacking in judgment (we are now getting into the area of argumentums ad hominem (attacking the person instead of the argument).