antagonist
noun
Simple meaning
The main character or force opposing the protagonist in a literary work or drama.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
antaguhnuhstSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ænˈtæɡənəst
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
authorship
The main character or force opposing the protagonist in a literary work or drama.
One who antagonizes or stirs.
An opponent or enemy.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (authorship) The main character or force opposing the protagonist in a literary work or drama.
Used this way, antagonist is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use antagonist
- “When bending the elbow the triceps are the antagonist.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An antagonist for estrogen that is used in the treatment of breast cancer.
An antagonist used to counteract the effects of narcotics (especially to counteract the depression of respiration).
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.