What’s the difference between discussion and argument?

This week we are looking at two words which are sometimes confused by learners of English: discussion and argument

.

discussion

function playAudio(url) { new Audio(url).play(); }

If you have a discussion with someone, you have a serious conversation with them.

After the lecture there was a lively discussion.

You say that you have a discussion about something or a discussion on something.

We had long discussions about our future plans.

We’re having a discussion on nuclear power.

argument

function playAudio(url) { new Audio(url).play(); }

Use argument instead of discussion to refer to a disagreement between people, especially one that results in them shouting angrily at each other.

We had a terrible argument, and now she won’t talk to me.

I said no, and we got into a big argument over it.


Find out more in our English Usage article.

This blogpost is based on Collins COBUILD English Usage, written for learners of English. For more examples of English usage points, please visit:  https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/english-usage.

All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.

Other Articles

Each/Every/Either/Neither

The words each, every, either, and neither are distributives. Distributives are determiners that are used to talk about how something is shared out or divided. Each, every, either, and neither are used with a singular noun. Each child was given a balloon. I remember every detail of our conversation. Either child could win the prize. Neither plan was successful. Each and every Each and every are not used… Read More

Active and passive forms in English

Active We use an active sentence when the subject of the verb is doing the action. The active is used in most English speech and writing, because we usually want to inform our listener or our reader who or what carried out the action of the verb. In the following… Read More

Using the passive in English

We use the passive to direct our listener’s attention to the important part of our message. The passive can be used when we do not know who carries out the action expressed by the verb, or when it is not important that we should know. It is sometimes much more… Read More