confrontal

English

Etymology

From confront +‎ -al.

Noun

confrontal (countable and uncountable, plural confrontals)

1. The act of confronting.

   Synonym: confrontation

   • 1860, John M[arius] Wilson, “Greenloaning”, in Nelsons’ Hand-Book to Scotland: For Tourists. […], London, Edinburgh, New York, N.Y.: T[homas] Nelson and Sons, […], page 326, column 1:

     Traces of Caledonian intrenchments and hill-forts occur so numerously for miles in the neighbourhood, and in such positions of confrontal to Ardoch, as to indicate that the Roman forces made a stiff and prolonged lodgment here, and met a vigorous resistance.

   • 1865 August 11, Samuel Bowles, “Letter XXII. The Yosemite Valley and the Big Trees.”, in Across the Continent: A Summer’s Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax, Springfield, Mass.: Samuel Bowles & Company; New York, N.Y.: Hurd & Houghton, page 223:

     The overpowering sense of the sublime, of awful desolation, of transcending marvelousness and unexpectedness, that swept over us, as we reined our horses sharply out of green forests, and stood upon high jutting rock that overlooked this rolling, upheaving sea of granite mountains, holding far down its rough lap this vale of beauty of meadow and grove and river,—such tide of feeling, such stoppage of ordinary emotions comes at rare intervals in any life. It was the confrontal of God face to face, as in great danger, in solemn, sudden death.

   • 1919, Daniel Carson Goodman, chapter XXV, in The Taker, New York, N.Y.: Boni and Liveright, page 218:

     Then the door of the elevator opened and a woman got out whom Marcy immediately recognised. In that moment of confrontal Marcy felt a strange sensation of guilt, as if she had stolen something and was being caught.

   • [1921], Holden Edward Sampson, “Lesson Ten: (4) Election, or the State of the Supplicant (continued); (4) ‘The Land of Canaan’ (continued)”, in Theou Sophia: Series Three. In Two Parts; Analytical Lessons in the Wisdom of the Divine Mysteries; Part One: Graduation; The Tests of the Golden Keys, volume 3, London: William Rider & Son, Limited […]; The Ek-Klesia Press […], →OCLC, page 335:

     By the constant encounters and confrontals of these Tests of the Golden Keys he is continuously “tried in the Fire” of the Ek-Klesia, which “proves every man’s Action, of what sort it is”; […]

   • 1924, Charles B[ert] Reed, “Survivals”, in Four Way Lodge, Chicago, Ill.: Pascal Covici, page 170:

     All social defenses are stripped away and the veritable soul of man stands forth, unashamed of its nakedness and unembarrassed for its deformities. Elemental forces are everywhere released. Everywhere they hint at poignant confrontals, so the night wind in the forest becomes an illuminating test of character and conduct.

   • 1961, Richard O’Connor, “Cantigny . . . Belleau Wood . . . Soissons”, in Black Jack Pershing: A Candid Biography of the United States’ Only Six-Star General since George Washington, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →LCCN, part two (Soldier on the Western Front), page 265:

     The Americans had proved themselves so eminently battleworthy in their first confrontals with the hard-pressing Germans that [Ferdinand] Foch wanted an American regiment attached to each French division as a stiffening element.

   • 1964, Katsuo Saito, Sadaji Wada, translated by Richard L[ee] Gage, “Spiritual Symbolism”, in Magic of Trees and Stones: Secrets of Japanese Gardening, New York, N.Y., Tokyo: The JPT [Japan Publications Trading] Book Company, →LCCN, section 1 (The General Garden), subsection 2 (The Inner Garden), subsubsection 3 (Stone Arrangements), page 88:

     The large stone symbolizes the act of confrontal, and the small stones the act of being pursued.

   • 1973, Gordon Yaswen, “Sunrise Hill Community: Post Mortem”, in Rosabeth Moss Kanter, compiler, Communes: Creating and Managing the Collective Life, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, section IV (Crises and Pressures for Change), subsection “Why They Dissolve—Problems of Short-Lived Communes”, page 468:

     Much of the chaos and indecision which marked the policies and activities of Sun Hill were, I think, due to an instinctive caution (of the members) in avoiding open confrontals with each other on key issues for fear that such confrontations would erupt into unbridgeable schisms and leave the mutual good-will of the Commune in shreds. And so, although on the surface Sun Hill’s members were pledged to constant and deep confrontals with each other, some more subconscious instinct for group survival bade us tread more softly in our dealings with each other, for it was not long, in Sun Hill’s history, before it became evident that the word “Community” is an enormously wide one, and that our various opinions on what is should mean needed every bit of that width to accommodate them.

   • 1977 January 25, Evan Oswald, “Readers Say”, in Daniel Hertzler, David E. Hostetler, editors, Gospel Herald, volume 70, number 4, Scottdale, Pa.: Mennonite Publishing House, page 85, column 1:

     We moved from Hesston College where Christian youth came charging in from all over the world and all kinds of Christian programs and confrontals were daily menu, out to a setting where the Christian church and Christian fellowship are a little hard to come by.

   • 1984, David A. Fein, “The Prelude (Verses 1-224)”, in A Reading of Villon’s Testament, Birmingham, Ala.: Summa Publications, Inc., →ISBN, page 8:

     The memory of Meung, intimately associated with suffering and humiliation, leads through penitence to the confrontal of a wasted youth, eventually to a contemplation of the brevity of life, and finally to an awareness of the omnipotent destructive force of death.

   • 1989, Robert Twohy, “At a Rest Stop South of Portland”, in Cynthia Manson, editor, Blood, Threat & Fears: Thirty-Three Great Tales of Psychological Suspense, New York, N.Y.: Barnes & Noble Books, published 1993, →ISBN, page 55:

     So no gun. I wanted clear confrontals, encounters of the closest kind, me and whoever, no bystanders or witnesses—just me and him, no boom. / Confrontals. I meant confrontations. But confrontals, I like it. Shorter and suddener.

   • 2005, Christine Gallant, “Privileging the Celtic”, in Keats and Romantic Celticism, Basingstoke, Hants.: Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, pages 129–130:

     She acts as a Druidess throughout this scene of confrontal with the narrator, with the same magisterial authority and special powers that the Druid held in the Celtic society.

Adjective

confrontal (comparative more confrontal, superlative most confrontal)

1. That confronts.

   Synonyms: confrontational, confrontative

   • 1973, Harold B. Gores, “[Schools For Young Children—The Recent American Past] Panelist’s Response”, in Robert H. Anderson, editor, Education in Anticipation of Tomorrow: The Lamplighter Seminar, Worthington, Oh.: Charles A. Jones Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 26:

     I have been in many of these overly structured and disciplined schools. I have noticed that in these schools of confrontal teaching, teachers and children seemed to be caught in a common grimness.

   • 1987, Dorothy Leeds, “The Quiz: Part One”, in Smart Questions: A New Strategy for Successful Managers, New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Book Company, →ISBN, part one (The System), pages 20–21:

     “When can I have an answer—I have other offers” (c) is better, if you feel confrontal on a given day; it lets the person know you’re valued. […] This is a question that you must answer in terms of your immediate reaction: what is your initial response when faced with a confrontal person? When dealing with confrontal people, taking the offensive in some way is the best strategy (b and d).

   • 1988, Donald Kuspit, Brian Maguire: An Essay by Donald Kuspit‎^[1], Dublin: The Douglas Hyde Gallery; Derry: The Orchard Gallery, →ISBN:

     The sense of abandonment to paint, or of wild painterliness, and of an imagery more fantastic than descriptive – freely transformative of a subject matter rather than transcriptive of its common appearance – and of a certain sense of confrontal alienation: all these are the signs of Expressionism, or rather, in the 80s, of Neo-Expressionism.

   • 1991, Giovanni Caracci, Norman S. Miller, “Alcohol and Drug Addiction in the Elderly”, in Norman S. Miller, editor, Comprehensive Handbook of Drug and Alcohol Addiction, New York, N.Y.: Marcel Dekker, Inc., →ISBN, section II (Special Populations), page 190:

     Supportive and cognitive psychotherapies are often useful in guiding the elderly alcoholic toward a life without alcohol and as many other drugs as possible. The elderly will respond to confrontal and directive forms of psychotherapy for alcoholism and drug dependence as they do for other psychiatric illnesses.

   • 1992, Robert A[llen] Baker, “Calling All Corpses or Dial ‘D’ for Dead”, in Hidden Memories: Voices and Visions from Within, Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, →ISBN, page 201:

     It is most important to note here that Dr. [M. Scott] Peck’s two cases of demonic possession grew directly out of a charismatic Christian religious practice called “deliverance”—a form of confrontal prayer challenge in which the participants (usually a minister and a prayer group), exhort a possibly possessed person to bring forth his demons.

   • 1993, Thomas E. Graves, “Keeping Ukraine Alive through Death: Ukrainian-American Gravestones as Cultural Markers”, in Richard E. Meyer, editor, Ethnicity and the American Cemetery (Material Culture), Bowling Green, Oh.: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, →ISBN, page 42:

     Several designs from the fund of Ukrainian folk art occur sporadically, such as Ukrainian confrontal birds, or, for those familiar with twentieth century Pennsylvania German art, Ukrainian distlefinks.

   • 2003, “Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism: Matthew Arnold”, in Lynn M[arie] Zott, editor, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism: Criticism of the Works of Novelists, Philosophers, and Other Creative Writers Who Died between 1800 and 1899, from the First Published Critical Appraisals to Current Evaluations (Gale Literary Criticism), volume 126, Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 23, column 1:

     “Sweetness and Light” is so imaginatively evasive because it is so tactical: it simultaneously causes the enemies of culture to disintegrate without a confrontal attack and builds its complex constructive apprehensions without conventional definitions and professional formulae.