adversary

Definition

An opponent or rival.

Etymology

From Middle English adversarie, from Anglo-Norman aversaire (in Wace's Life of Saint Margaret) and Old French aversier, aversaire (French adversaire), from Latin adversārius, from adversus (“turned toward”).

Example Sentences

• "He prepared to fight his adversary."
• "In the political drama that Donald Trump has created in Washington, he could not have dreamed up a more formidable adversary than James Comey."
• "The real bombshell it contains is not the confidence of the spy agencies that Russia hoped to subvert American democracy. It is that US intelligence experts effectively confirmed that for the second election in a row, Trump acolytes repeatedly used, knowingly or otherwise, misinformation produced by the spies of one of America’s most sworn foreign adversaries to try to win a US election."

Related Words