Art & MusicGreek → English
Antagonist
/ænˈtæɡənɪst/noun
The character, force or substance that works against the main one.
The Greek roots
ἀντί
antí
against, opposite
ἀγωνιστής
agōnistḗs
contestant, competitor
Literally: “opposing contestant”
The story of the word
The agōnistēs was a competitor at the games or an actor in the dramatic contest, so the antagonist is the man on the other side of the sand. Greek theatre had a protagonist, a deuteragonist and a tritagonist as ranked speaking parts, and the antagonist was borrowed from that vocabulary rather than belonging to it. Pharmacologists took the word in the twentieth century for a drug that blocks a receptor instead of firing it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
protagonistagonyagoniseantithesis
In a sentence
The novel has no antagonist, only weather and bad luck.
Beta blockers are antagonists at adrenaline receptors.