One use of munkar applies to a report from a narrator notorious for excessive mistakes, serious heedlessness, or manifest misconduct. In this usage, explicit contradiction of a stronger route is not a necessary condition; the narrator's critical defect itself may be decisive.
In another well-known technical use, a report is munkar when a weak transmitter contradicts stronger reliable transmitters; the preserved counterpart is called maʿrūf. These usages are related but must not be collapsed into one definition.
Application: An isolated report from a habitually unreliable transmitter may be munkar under the broader usage even without a preserved contrary version. An explicit clash between a weak narrator and reliable routes exemplifies the narrower comparative usage.