Word.ws English Dictionary

anti-hero

anti-hero is the alternative form of antihero.

Meaning of antihero

Noun

antihero (plural antiheroes)

  1. (roleplaying games) A protagonist who proceeds in an unheroic manner, such as by criminal means, via cowardly actions, or for mercenary goals.
    • Alienation: A stage on the downside of the passage wherein the holdfast and the antihero take actions which bring about a disintegration of personality.2006, James Bonnet, Stealing Fire from the Gods: The Complete Guide to Story for Writers and Filmmakers
    Synonyms:
    unhero

Forms of anti-hero

pluralanti-heroes

Origin of anti-hero

From anti- + hero.

Questions about anti-hero

What is anti-hero the alternative form of?
Anti-hero is the alternative form of antihero.

Words near anti-hero in the dictionary

  1. anti-hauls
  2. anti-Hegelian
  3. anti-Hegelians
  4. anti-hemorrhagic
  5. anti-hemorrhagics
  6. anti-hero
  7. anti-heroes
  8. anti-heroine
  9. anti-heroines
  10. anti-heterosexist
  11. anti-heterosexists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anti-hero (page history and authors); antihero (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “anti-hero.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/anti-hero. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.