agon

See also: Agon, ágon, aĝon, agôn, and agöṅ

English

WOTD – 10 January 2006

Etymology

From Latin agōn, from Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn, contest).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈæ.ɡəʊn/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈæ.ɡoʊn/
  • (file)
  • Hyphenation: a‧gon

Noun

agon (countable and uncountable, plural agons or agones)

  1. (countable) A struggle or contest; conflict; especially between the protagonist and antagonist in a literary work.
    • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 134:
      It was not ecological pressure or shortages of protein, as anthropologist Marvin Harris has claimed; institutionalized violence, as opposed to the stylized agons of hunters over grievances, was the shadow side of the Neolithic Revolution.
    • 2023 October 17, Volodymyr Yermolenko, “Europe seeks peace, not war. But will it be ready if war comes to Europe?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
      The other ethical system is that of agon. Agon is a battlefield. We enter agon not to exchange, but to fight. We dream of winning but are also prepared to lose – including to lose ourselves, even in the literal sense of dying for a great cause.
  2. (countable) An intellectual conflict or apparent competition of ideas.
    • 1986 March 23, Harold Bloom, “Freud, the Greatest Modern Writer”, in New York Times:
      Freud's originality stemmed from his aggression and ambition in his agon with biology.
    • 2022, China Miéville, chapter 6, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC:
      The point, though, is that to fully and uncritically surrender to such agon against individuals is to invite one's own ethical degeneration; []
  3. (countable) A contest in ancient Greece, as in athletics or music, in which prizes were awarded.
  4. (uncountable) A two-player board game played on a hexagonally-tiled board, popular in Victorian times.
    Synonym: queen's guard

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Anagrams

Esperanto

Noun

agon

  1. accusative singular of ago

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn, contest).

Pronunciation

Noun

agōn m (genitive agōnis); third declension

  1. a contest

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative agōn agōnēs
Genitive agōnis agōnum
Dative agōnī agōnibus
Accusative agōnem agōnēs
Ablative agōne agōnibus
Vocative agōn agōnēs

Descendants

  • English: agon (struggle)
  • German: Agon
  • Italian: agone
  • Portuguese: ágon

References

  • agon”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • agon in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • agon in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • agon”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
  • Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old English āgān (to go out), from Proto-West Germanic *uʀgān.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /aˈɡɔːn/

Verb

agon

  1. to go, depart

Conjugation

References

Polish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈa.ɡɔn/
  • (file)
  • Rhymes: -aɡɔn
  • Syllabification: a‧gon

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn).

Noun

agon m inan

  1. (Ancient Greece, historical) agon (contest)
Declension
adjectives
nouns

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Noun

agon

  1. genitive plural of agona

Further reading

  • agon in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese

Noun

agon m (plural agons or agones)

  1. agon (a struggle between the protagonist and antagonist)

Vietnamese

Chemical element
Ar
Previous: clo (Cl)
Next: kali (K)

Etymology

From French argon, from English argon, from New Latin argon, from Ancient Greek ἀργόν (argón).

Pronunciation

  • (Hà Nội) IPA(key): [ʔaː˧˧ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧]
  • (Huế) IPA(key): [ʔaː˧˧ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧]
  • (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA(key): [ʔaː˧˧ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧]
  • Phonetic: a gôngThe template Template:vi-IPA does not use the parameter(s):
    2=ác gông
    3=ạc gông
    Please see Module:checkparams for help with this warning.

Noun

agon

  1. argon
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