Opposed

How to spell opposed

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce opposed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does opposed mean?

1. adjectiveDisagreeing with or actively resisting something; set against it.
2. verbPast tense of oppose: to have resisted, argued against, or fought something.

Opposed in a sentence

• adjective

  The council members were firmly opposed to the new parking charges.

• verb

  The union opposed the merger from the very start.

• adjective

  Many residents remain opposed to building flats on the green belt.

• verb

  Local farmers opposed the motorway route through their land.

Where does opposed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb opponere, which meant 'to set against' or 'to place opposite', formed from the prefix ob- (here meaning 'against') and ponere (meaning 'to place' or 'to put'). The past participle of ponere was positus, which is why the spelling carries that telltale 'pos' rather than the 'po' sound alone might suggest. English picked the word up in the late 1300s through Old French opposer, where it already carried the senses of resisting and standing in the way. The very same ponere root sits inside a whole family of familiar words such as 'position', 'deposit', and 'compose', all of which keep that 's' in the spelling. Knowing the word literally means 'placed against' makes the single 's' and the firm 'pos' middle easier to fix in memory.

How the word is built

• op- (variant of ob-: against)
• pos (from ponere/positus: to place)
• -ed (past participle/adjective suffix)