Opponent

How to spell opponent

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce opponent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does opponent mean?

1. nounA person who competes against or argues against another in a contest, debate, or conflict.

Opponent in a sentence

• The boxer studied footage of his opponent before the title fight.

• A skilled debater anticipates every argument an opponent might raise.

Where does opponent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Opponent comes from the Latin opponens, the present participle of the verb opponere, which literally meant 'to place or set against'. That verb was built from the prefix ob-, meaning 'against' (which assimilates to op- before the p), and ponere, meaning 'to put or place', the same root that sits inside words like position, postpone, and component. So an opponent is at heart someone who is 'placed against' you, set up on the other side. English adopted the word in the early 1400s, first in the sense of one who argues against a position in a formal debate, and it broadened to cover any rival or adversary in a contest. The spelling trap lives in those two unstressed vowels: the o in op- and the e in -ent are both reduced in speech, so writers reach for the wrong letters even though both trace cleanly back to the Latin parts.

How the word is built

• op- (against, from ob-)
• pon (to place, from Latin ponere)
• -ent (agent/noun suffix)