oppose
verb
Simple meaning
To be against something or someone.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhpohzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈpoʊz
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.
verb
To attempt to stop the progression of; to resist or antagonize by physical means, or by arguments, etc.; to contend against.
Be against; express opposition to
To place in front of, or over against; to set opposite; to exhibit.
To object to.
Set into opposition or rivalry
To present or set up in opposition; to pose.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To attempt to stop the progression of; to resist or antagonize by physical means, or by arguments, etc.; to contend against.
Used this way, oppose is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use oppose
- “The senator said he would oppose the bill.”verb
- “We oppose the ban on abortion.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Being in opposition or having an opponent.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A word that expresses a meaning opposed to the meaning of another word, in which case the two words are antonyms of each other.
A word that expresses a meaning opposed to the meaning of another word, in which case the two words are antonyms of each other.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to attempt to stop the progression of
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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.