eristic

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The Word of the Day for February 24 is: 

eristic   \ih-RISS-tik\   adjective
     : characterized by disputatious and often subtle and 
specious reasoning 

Example sentence:
     Scott grew tired of the eristic arguments his friend put 
forth and refused to discuss the issue further.

Did you know?
     "Eristic" means "argumentative" as well as logically 
invalid, and someone prone to eristic arguments probably causes 
a fair amount of strife amongst his or her conversational 
partners. It's no surprise, then, that the word traces its 
ancestry back to the Greek word for "strife." "Eristic" and the 
variant "eristical" come from the Greek "eristikos," 
meaning "fond of wrangling," from "erizein," "to wrangle," and 
ultimately from "eris," which means "strife." The adjective 
appeared in print in English in 1637, and was followed 
approximately 20 years later by the noun "eristic," which 
refers to either a person who is skilled at debates based on 
formal logic or to the art or practice of argument.