aggressive

aggressive 1 attacking, offensive (see base words at ATTACK n)

Analogous words: invading, encroaching, trespassing (see TRESPASS vb)

Antonyms: resisting: repelling

2 Aggressive, militant, assertive, self-assertive, pushing, pushy are here compared as applied to persons, their dispositions, or their behavior, and as meaning conspicuously or obtrusively active or energetic.

Aggressive implies a disposition to assume or maintain leadership or domination, sometimes by bullying, sometimes by indifference to others’ rights, but more often by self-confident and forceful prosecution of one’s ends

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as intolerant and aggressive as any of the traditional satirists— Day Lewis

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protect themselves against a too aggressive prosecution of the women’s business— Shaw

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Militant, like aggressive, implies a fighting disposition but seldom conveys a suggestion of self-seeking. It usually implies extreme devotion to some cause, movement, or institution and energetic and often self-sacrificing prosecution of its ends

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militant feminists

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militant trade union

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the cause of reform slowly went on gaining adherents— most of them . . . of the acquiescent rather than the militant type— Grandgent

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Assertive stresses self-confidence and boldness in action or, especially, in the expression of one’s opinions. It often implies a determined attempt to make oneself or one’s influence felt

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somewhat too diffident, not assertive enough— Bennett

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to say, with some challenging assertive people, that trees are more beautiful than flowers— Lucas

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Self-assertive usually adds to assertive the implication of bumptiousness or undue forwardness

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self-assertive behavior incompatible with cooperativeness

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Pushing, when used without any intent to depreciate, comes very close to aggressive in the current sense of the latter; however, the word is more commonly derogatory and implies, variously, officiousness, social climbing, or offensive intrusiveness

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an energetic, pushing youth, already intent on getting on in the world— Anderson

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Pushy is very close in meaning to pushing but is more consistently derogatory in connotation

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his motive power derives from . . . the pushiest ambition since Alexander the Great— R. L. Taylor

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careful not to sound pushy or over- eager— McClung

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Analogous words: energetic, strenuous, *vigorous: *masterful, domineering, imperious: fighting, combating or combative (see corresponding nouns at CONTEST)