noun
adjective
Usage
What does combatant mean? A combatant is one of the sides engaged in combat—active fighting.In war, enemy combatants are the opposing sides in the war or battle.In boxing and other martial arts, the two fighters can be called combatants.The word combat is sometimes used more broadly or figuratively to refer to active conflict between two people or groups, as in The two corporations are preparing to do combat in the courtroom. The sides in this kind of combat can also be called combatants.Less commonly, combatant can be used as an adjective meaning engaged in fighting. It can also mean inclined to fight, but the word combative is more commonly used in this way.Example: If diplomacy fails, the two nations could become enemy combatants.
Other Word Forms
- precombatant noun
- uncombatant adjective
Etymology
Origin of combatant
1425–75; late Middle English combataunt < Middle French combatant. See combat, -ant
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.
In the late Middle Ages, Christian theologians and jurists began to advance more humane views regarding the treatment of captured enemy combatants.
Kilgore leads his cavalry into air battle to the strains of Wagner, taking out combatants in between swigs of coffee.
From Los Angeles Times
Medical facilities can lose their protective rights if used for hostile acts against enemy combatants, said Emanuela-Chiara Gillard, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics Law and Armed conflict.
Crucially, Rove went on, Boritt helped them inhabit that history through the eyes of its combatants on both sides—young men, many of them still teenagers.
Warfare is a never-ending escalation, with combatants and potential combatants reacting to one another to gain an edge that is never as sustainable as hoped.
From Barron's
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.
