opponent

Pluralopponents

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A person one competes against physically in a fight, sport, game, or contest.

   The champion faced a younger, faster opponent in the title bout.

   Tennis players adjust their strategy depending on each opponent's style.

   Similarrival, competitor, challenger, adversary

   Note

   Contests of every kind belong here, not only those of the body. In Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana (1958), a good draughts player defeats an opponent without capturing his pieces. The word sits naturally with defeat, strike and conquer, and Alexander Pope's Iliad of Homer (1720) already has Achilles able to conquer every opponent. A rival met in argument rather than combat belongs to the verbal sense.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A person who works or takes a position against someone or something, or tries to stop their progress.

   Determined opponents blocked the merger at every step.

   She rallied her supporters against a well-funded opponent.

   Similaradversary, rival, foe, enemy

   Oppositesupporter, ally

   Note

   A Latin participle turned into an English noun: oppōnēns, "opposing", from oppōnō, "I oppose". At root, then, an opponent is simply someone in the act of opposing. The noun takes of for whatever is opposed (opponents of the regime) and pairs easily with adjectives of strength such as formidable or determined. It is the broad meaning; fights, arguments and objections to policy each narrow it.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A person who objects to a policy, course of action, or set of ideas.

   Opponents of the reform argued it would raise costs for families.

   He emerged as the leading opponent of the proposed merger.

   Similarcritic, objector, detractor

   Oppositesupporter, proponent, advocate

   Note

   Here the opposition is to an idea rather than a person: the opponent stands against a policy, a proposal or a cause. The usual link is of, as in an opponent of the death penalty or Elizabeth Gaskell's "bitterest opponents of any proposal" in Cranford (1853). Peter Heylin's Cosmographie (1652) uses to instead, writing "opponents to it". Dedicated, leading and bitterest are typical companions.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   Someone on the other side of an argument, debate, or dispute from another person.

   He dismantled his opponent in the debate with three sharp questions.

   Talk-show opponents traded barbs over the controversial ruling.

   Similaradversary, rival, antagonist

   Oppositeally

   Note

   Here the contest is fought with words, and winning is subtler than in a fight. Hannah More observed in 1777 that it is easier to confound than to convince an opponent. The word suits debate, dispute and controversy, where the other side may be answered, refuted or persuaded rather than beaten. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847) uses it for someone squaring up to another speaker in conversation.

5. 5
   nounhistoricalcountable

   In an academic disputation, the participant who opened the proceedings by raising objections against a proposed theological or philosophical thesis.

   The opponent challenged each premise of the dissertation before the assembled doctors.

   We make the argument appere slender, when we receiue it laughyngly, and declare by wordes, euen at the first, that it is nothyng to the purpose, and so abashe the opponent.

   1551, Thomas Wilson, “The maner of confutacion twoo waies considered”

   Note

   A role, not a temperament. In the formal academic disputation, the opponent attacked a thesis and the respondent defended it, with a moderator presiding. Raphael Holinshed's chronicles (1587) list "opponents, respondents, & moderators" side by side. John Sergeant, in 1700, complains of a respondent who abandons his duty to "turn Opponent." In older writing on divinity and logic, read it as a historical office.

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