challenger
Syllables: chal·leng·er/ˈt͡ʃælɪn(d)ʒə/US/ˈt͡ʃælənd͡ʒəɹ/
challenger noun: one who challenges.
Noun (1)
challenger (plural challengers)
- One who challenges.
- [C]ertainly there is no true orator who is not a hero. […] He is challenger and must answer all comers.1876, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Eloquence”, in Letters and Social Aims, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 103
- Debates are often unpredictable, but it is especially hard to game out how this debate featuring a moderate standard-bearer and a liberal challenger will unfold and how people will process it. Hundreds of thousands of viewers, if not millions, will have been personally affected by Sunday, as public...2020 March 14, Shane Goldmacher, “Throw out the debate Playbook: [Joe] Biden and [Bernie] Sanders to clash amid crisis”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN...
- Antonyms:
- nonchallenger
- One who confronts or opposes; a confronter, an opposer.
- challengers of traditional attitudes
- 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.
- One child stood as king of the hill, and tried to withstand the pushes and shoves of his challengers.
- One who brings a legal claim; a claimant, a plaintiff; also, one who accuses; an accuser.
- Novv vvhen they vvere come before Appius, ſitting judicially upon his tribunall ſeate, the plaintife or challenger aforeſaid, declareth againſt her, […]1600, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “[Book III]”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC, page 117
- Often in the form Challenger: a match, tournament, or tour of the second-highest tier organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals.
Proper noun capitalized: Challenger
Challenger
- A space shuttle, named after HMS Challenger (1858), destroyed on January 28, 1986 with loss of its seven-member crew.
Noun (2) capitalized: Challenger
Challenger (plural Challengers)
- A steam locomotive of the 4-6-6-4 wheel arrangement.
- American Locomotive Company, which introduced the 4-6-6-4 (on Union Pacific) in 1936, constructed more Challengers than any other builder and, in Northern Pacific's Z-8 class, built the heaviest. NP owned 48 4-6-6-4's in three classes.1959, David P. Morgan, editor, Steam’s Finest Hour, Kalmbach Publishing Co., page 102
- Alternative letter-case form of challenger (“a match, tournament, or tour of the second-highest tier organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals”).
challenger meaning in Hindi, Indonesian, Persian and Thai
challenger in Hindi
- one who challenges
- दावेदार dāvedār
challenger in Indonesian
- one who challenges
- penantang
challenger in Persian
- one who challenges
- چالشانگیز čâlešangiz
challenger in Thai
- one who challenges
- คู่แข่ง kûu-kɛ̀ng
More languagesFewer languages
- challenger in Vietnamese
- người thách
Examples of challenger in a sentence
- Debates are often unpredictable, but it is especially hard to game out how this debate featuring a moderate standard-bearer and a liberal challenger will unfold and how people will process it.2020 March 14, Shane Goldmacher, “Throw out the debate Playbook: [Joe] Biden and [Bernie] Sanders to clash amid crisis”, in The New York...
- Candidates for a state senate seat race in South Florida in which a spoiler appeared to help Republican challenger Ileana Garcia unseat incumbent Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez.2020 November 23, Scott Glover, Curt Devine, Drew Griffin, Scott Bronstein, “A Dark Money Mystery in Florida Centers on the Campaign of a...
- No faire Princeſſe: he is the general challenger, I come but in as others do, to try vvith him the ſtrength of my youth.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First...
Synonyms of challenger
Antonyms
Forms of challenger
| plural | challengers |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Challenger |
| plural | Challengers |
Origin of challenger
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...
From challenger.
Words formed from challenger
Phrases with challenger
Questions about challenger
- What does challenger mean?
- Challenger means one who challenges.
- What is challenger in Hindi?
- Challenger in Hindi is दावेदार (dāvedār). See Challenger meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use challenger in a sentence?
- Debates are often unpredictable, but it is especially hard to game out how this debate featuring a moderate standard-bearer and a liberal challenger will unfold and how people will process it.
- What part of speech is challenger?
- Challenger can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce challenger?
- Challenger is pronounced /ˈt͡ʃælɪn(d)ʒə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of challenger?
- The plural of challenger is challengers.
Words near challenger in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: challenger (page history and authors); Challenger (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-challenger.wav.
Cite this entry: “challenger.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/challenger. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.