Proponent

How to spell proponent

9 letters · 3 syllables

11 of the 52 people asked to spell proponent in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is proponant. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

proponant proponent

What people typed instead

• proponant5 people

How to pronounce proponent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does proponent mean?

1. nounA person who argues in favour of a theory, proposal, or course of action.

Proponent in a sentence

• She became a leading proponent of the new recycling scheme.

• As a vocal proponent of remote work, he cited the productivity figures in every meeting.

Where does proponent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin proponere, meaning 'to put forward' or 'to set out for display', formed from pro- 'forth, forward' and ponere 'to put or place'. A proponent is therefore, quite literally, someone who puts an idea forward. English took the term in the 1500s from the Latin present participle proponentem, the form describing the one doing the putting forward. The same ponere root quietly underlies a whole family of English words, including 'propose', 'proposition', 'component', 'opponent', and even 'position', so a proponent is the natural mirror of an opponent: one places an argument forward while the other sets it against. Remembering that Latin -entem participle ending is the key to the spelling, since it explains why the word finishes in -ent rather than the easily confused -ant.

How the word is built

• pro- (forth, forward)
• pon (from Latin ponere: to put or place)
• -ent (agent-noun suffix: one who)

People who misspell proponent also struggle with

Of the Spelling Garden players who got proponent wrong the first time, this is how many also got each of these wrong.

• received 80% of them got it wrong