"combative about" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It means someone is argumentative or confrontational about a specific topic or issue. You can use it when describing someone's behavior or attitude towards a certain subject. Example: Mary was always very combative about politics, often getting into heated debates with those who held different views from her own.
That is why academics in the French studies community should be self-confident and even combative about their future.
There was nothing combative about them this morning, sun basking and amicably feeding in their rushy hollow.
He could be bizarrely combative about things he wasn't that fussed about, guided by the principle that he needed to teach me how to argue.
Leigh is famously combative about those who don't get his films; and some journalists, having experienced his bite and his bark, feel he is unable to accept criticism.
Unlike most French politicians, who seem loth to be combative about "Europe" in the campaign for the European Parliament, he is a passionate, outspoken Europhile, who is bound to argue vigorously for "ever closer union".
After dismissing the threat or promise of genetically tinkering with our progeny — we do not know enough yet to know what is an improvement and what is not — the panelists turned combative about free will and morality.
PAGE A11 Rumsfeld Leaves Pentagon Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld left the Pentagon with a combative speech about American power.
The chief executives of the companies, Steven P. Jobs of Apple and Rob Glaser of RealNetworks, speak in combative terms about the competition.
Promises of negotiations towards a peace deal now pale in popularity compared with combative talk about defending Israel and its Jewish character.
Last year on the fringe, Alfie Brown announced himself as a talent to watch with a combative set about the bland homogeneity of comedy and culture.
When devolution happened a lot of UK institutions thought 'Scotland is devolved now so we don't need to engage so much.'" Sitting in a bustling cafe near the Scottish parliament, Alexander is more combative still about Salmond.
