archenemy
Americannoun
-
a chief enemy
-
(often capital) the devil
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of archenemy
Explanation
An archenemy is a main foe or opponent. Batman's archenemy is the Joker, and Peter Pan's is Captain Hook. An archenemy is a hostile adversary. If you're fiercely competitive with your main pickleball rival, you may think of her as your archenemy — even though she's probably a perfectly nice person. Classic archenemies include the evil Cruella deVille, archenemy to the 101 dalmatians, and opposing military generals who vow to defeat each other's armies. The word is derived from the Greek prefix arkh-, "chief," and Latin inimicus, "not friend."
Vocabulary lists containing archenemy
The Very, Very Far North
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Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody
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arch, archi (chief, most important, rule)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Inflation, for central bankers, is the archenemy and the root of all evil.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 7, 2026
But when he did play it, it was less about his archenemy than about L.A., a city with a new song in the canon, a definitive “Us” who were all alike in screaming it.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2025
Those groups have long provided Iran with a means to challenge its regional archenemy Israel, as well as the U.S., without a direct military confrontation.
From Seattle Times ● May 21, 2024
“My dear brother, my archenemy, how did we come to this?”
From New York Times ● Dec. 19, 2023
But Professor Moriarty—the archenemy of Holmes—was the greatest villain.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
On the premiere, diet guru Susan Powter, comic Kevin Meaney and the Bee Gees were Space Ghost’s guests, accompanied by his TV band — led by former archenemies Moltar and Zorak.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 4, 2025
Roman blurts this out in the "Prague" episode of "Succession" in Season 1 as he's crashing a secret meeting between Ken and Sandy Furness, one of Logan Roy's archenemies.
From Salon ● May 20, 2023
But nobody would have ever predicted that two archenemies of the past 50 years, the environmentalists and Detroit, would somehow find themselves rallying to the same side.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 27, 2022
Mustafa al-Kadhimi, visiting Tehran and speaking at a news conference alongside Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, alluded to Iraq’s concern not to become a battlefield between Iran and the United States, which are archenemies.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 21, 2020
They were willing to risk igniting a whole new crisis to catch a low-level American agent and score points against their archenemies at the CIA.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
