challenger
Meanings
- One who challenges.
- One who confronts or opposes; a confronter, an opposer.
- One who plays against the current champion of a contest or game in hopes of winning and becoming the new champion.
- One who brings a legal claim; a claimant, a plaintiff; also, one who accuses; an accuser.
- Often in the form Challenger: a match, tournament, or tour of the second-highest tier organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals.
- A space shuttle, named after HMS Challenger (1858), destroyed on January 28, 1986 with loss of its seven-member crew.
- A steam locomotive of the 4-6-6-4 wheel arrangement.
- Alternative letter-case form of challenger (“a match, tournament, or tour of the second-highest tier organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals”).
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
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 challengeur), from chalenger, chalongier (see above) + -eor (variant of -or (suffix forming agent nouns)). By surface analysis, challenge (verb) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns).