challenger

See also: Challenger

English

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English chalengere, chalangeour; equivalent to challenge +‎ -er.

Noun

challenger (plural challengers)

One who challenges; especially, one who plays against the current champion of a game or contest 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.
- 2020, Shane Goldmacher, “Throw Out the Debate Playbook: Biden and Sanders to Clash Amid Crisis”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:
  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 gathering spaces are shuttered, schools are closed and on Thursday the stock market plunged by the largest percentage in decades (it snapped back upward on Friday).

Synonyms

(one who challenges): adversary, combatant, contender, disputer, opponent

Derived terms

Translations

one who challenges

Armenian: հավակնորդ (hy) (havaknord)
Bulgarian: предизвикател (bg) m (predizvikatel), претенде́нт (bg) m (pretendént)
Chinese:
Mandarin: 挑戰者 / 挑战者 (zh) (tiaǒzhànzhě)
Czech: vyzývatel m
Danish: udfordrer c
Dutch: uitdager (nl) m
Finnish: haastaja (fi)
French: challengeur (fr) m, concurrent (fr) m
Galician: desafiador m
German: Herausforderer (de) m, Herausforderin (de) f
Hindi: दावेदार (hi) m (dāvedār)
Indonesian: penantang (id)
Irish: agóideoir m
Italian: sfidante (it) m or f, sfidatore m (literary)
Japanese: 挑戦者 (ja) (ちょうせんしゃ, chōsensha)
Korean: 도전자 (dojeonja)
Latin: prōvocātor m
Norwegian:
Bokmål: utfordrer

Nynorsk: utfordrar m
Old High German: urheizo
Persian: چالش‌انگیز (čâlešangiz)
Polish: konkurent (pl) m
Portuguese: desafiante (pt) m or f, desafiador (pt) m
Quechua: tupaq
Romanian: pretendent (ro) m, pretendentă (ro) f, persoană care contestă ceva f
Russian: претенде́нт (ru) m (pretendént)
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: изазѝва̄ч m

Roman: izazìvāč (sh) m
Slovak: vyzývateľ m
Spanish: desafiador m, retante m or f
Thai: คู่แข่ง (th) (kûu-kɛ̀ng)
Ukrainian: претенде́нт (uk) m (pretendént)
Vietnamese: người thách
Welsh: heriwr m

French

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒe/
Audio: (file)
IPA^(key): /tʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒe/

Verb

challenger

to challenge

Conjugation

This is a regular -er verb, but the stem is written challenge- before endings that begin with -a- or -o- (to indicate that the -g- is a "soft" /ʒ/ and not a "hard" /ɡ/). This spelling change occurs in all verbs in -ger, such as neiger and manger.

Conjugation of challenger (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	compound	avoir + past participle
infinitive	simple	challenger
present participle or gerund¹	simple	challengeant /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒɑ̃/
present participle or gerund¹	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		challengé /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒe/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	challenge /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ/	challenges /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ/	challenge /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ/	challengeons /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒɔ̃/	challengez /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒe/	challengent /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ/
	imperfect	challengeais /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒɛ/	challengeais /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒɛ/	challengeait /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒɛ/	challengions /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ.jɔ̃/	challengiez /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ.je/	challengeaient /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒɛ/
	past historic²	challengeai /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒe/	challengeas /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒa/	challengea /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒa/	challengeâmes /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒam/	challengeâtes /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒat/	challengèrent /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒɛʁ/
	future	challengerai /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁe/	challengeras /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁa/	challengera /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁa/	challengerons /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁɔ̃/	challengerez /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁe/	challengeront /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	challengerais /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁɛ/	challengerais /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁɛ/	challengerait /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁɛ/	challengerions /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁjɔ̃/	challengeriez /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁje/	challengeraient /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒə.ʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior²	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	challenge /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ/	challenges /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ/	challenge /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ/	challengions /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ.jɔ̃/	challengiez /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ.je/	challengent /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ/
(simple tenses)	imperfect²	challengeasse /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒas/	challengeasses /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒas/	challengeât /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒa/	challengeassions /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒa.sjɔ̃/	challengeassiez /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒa.sje/	challengeassent /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
(compound tenses)	pluperfect²	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	~~nous~~	~~vous~~	–
simple		—	challenge /(t)ʃa.lɛn(d)ʒ/	—	challengeons /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒɔ̃/	challengez /(t)ʃa.lɛn(.d)ʒe/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
¹ The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
² In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).