gainsayer
gainsayer noun: one who contradicts or denies what is alleged; an opposer.
Noun
gainsayer (plural gainsayers)
- One who contradicts or denies what is alleged; an opposer.
- A person who gainsays others; a disagreeable person.
- First, The writer, positively asserts, "That Wood's halfpence were current among us for several months with the universal approbation of all people, without one single gainsayer".1724, “Letter IV: A Letter to the Whole People of Ireland”, in The Drapier's Letters, Jonathan Swift
- This urge to ensure the continued viability of UK science is balanced by warnings that such a system brings closer the day when computers will take over the running of the world and discard humanity. One such gainsayer is Bill Joy, inventor of the web language Java and chief scientist at computer...2000, Robin McKie, "'Super Brain' to eclipse the Net adds to power of machines," The Observer at guardian.co.uk, 21 May (retrieved 8 Sep. 2008)
Synonyms of gainsayer
Forms of gainsayer
| plural | gainsayers |
|---|
Origin of gainsayer
From Middle English aȝenseyere, equivalent to gainsay + -er.
Words that rhyme with gainsayer
Questions about gainsayer
- What does gainsayer mean?
- Gainsayer means one who contradicts or denies what is alleged; an opposer.
- What part of speech is gainsayer?
- Gainsayer is a noun.
- What is the plural of gainsayer?
- The plural of gainsayer is gainsayers.
Words near gainsayer in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gainsayer (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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