challenger
UK /ˈt͡ʃælɪn(d)ʒə/ · US /ˈt͡ʃælənd͡ʒəɹ/ noun, proper noun
Forms challengers
- noun One who challenges.
- noun One who confronts or opposes; a confronter, an opposer. “challengers of traditional attitudes”
- noun (games, sports) One who plays against the current champion of a contest or game in hopes of winning and becoming the new champion. “The champion hopes to defeat his new challenger in the game to remain undefeated.”
- noun (chiefly law, obsolete) One who brings a legal claim; a claimant, a plaintiff; also, one who accuses; an accuser.
- noun (tennis, also attributive) Often in the form Challenger: a match, tournament, or tour of the second-highest tier organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals.
- proper noun A space shuttle, named after HMS Challenger (1858), destroyed on January 28, 1986 with loss of its seven-member crew.
- noun (rail transport) A steam locomotive of the 4-6-6-4 wheel arrangement.
Synonyms
adversary contender disputer opponent rival competitor competition
Antonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English chalengere, chalangeour, chalenger (“one who causes injury, or makes false charges or slanderous statements; one who disputes, disputant, objector; claimant”), and then partly from both of the following:
* From Middle English chalengen (“to accuse; to accuse falsely or maliciously, slander; to treat unjustly, wrong; to dispute, object; to make a claim or demand; to rebuke, scold; to issue a challenge to; etc.”) + -er, -ere (suffix forming agent nouns). Chalengen is derived from Anglo-Norman chalenger, and Old French chalenger, chalongier (“to challenge, dispute; to claim; etc.”) (modern French challenger), from Late Latin calumniāre, the second-person singular present active imperative or indicative of calumnior (“to accuse falsely; to make hurtful untrue comments about; etc.”), from Latin calumnia (“artifice, trickery; false accusation; false statement; etc.”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeh₁l-, *keh₁l- (“to beguile, deceive”)) + -or (the first-person singular present passive indicative of -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)).
* From Old French chalengeor (“claimant, plaintiff; false accuser, slanderer”) (modern French challengeur), from chalenger, chalongier (see above) + -eor (variant of -or (suffix forming agent nouns)).
By surface analysis, challenge (verb) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns).
From challenger.
Webster’s 1913
- noun One who challenges.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “challenger”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details