Word.ws English Dictionary

gainstander

gainstander noun: one who stands in opposition to (a belief, cause, etc.); an opposer.

Noun

gainstander (plural gainstanders)

  1. (archaic) One who stands in opposition to (a belief, cause, etc.); an opposer
    • "[…] Formerly, it is said, they were leopards; but now they are become lions at all points, and must take precedence of beast, fish, or fowl, or woe worth the gainstander."1832, Sir Walter Scott, The Talisman

Forms of gainstander

pluralgainstanders

Origin of gainstander

From Middle English aȝenstondere, equivalent to gainstand + -er. Cognate with Scots gainstandar, ganstandar and againstandare (“resister, opposer, opponent”).

Questions about gainstander

What does gainstander mean?
Gainstander means one who stands in opposition to (a belief, cause, etc.); an opposer.
What part of speech is gainstander?
Gainstander is a noun.
What is the plural of gainstander?
The plural of gainstander is gainstanders.

Words near gainstander in the dictionary

  1. gainsome
  2. gainspeaker
  3. gainspeaking
  4. gainst
  5. gainstand
  6. gainstander
  7. gainstanders
  8. gainstanding
  9. gainstands
  10. gainstay
  11. gainstayed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gainstander (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: “gainstander.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gainstander. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.