Antagonist, among the Ancients this term referred to an armed enemy in battle.

This word comes from the Greek ἀνταγωνιστὴς, composed of ἀντὶ, against , and ἀγωνίζομαι, I fight .

Today this term is used less frequently to signify one of the participants in armed combat, and more often to designate one of the contestants in a literary dispute or pedagogical exercise; it can be both absolute and relative. Thus a respondent who remains on the defensive and who endeavours to resolve the objections presented to him has antagonists , but one cannot say that he is the antagonist of the people who argue against him. On the other hand, two parties that maintain contradictory opinions and raise difficulties for one another are each other’s respective antagonists . Thus the Newtonians are antagonists of the Cartesians, and the latter are in turn antagonists of the Newtonians.