enmity

American  

[en-mi-tee] / ˈɛn mɪ ti /

noun

• enmities
  plural

1. a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill will; animosity; antagonism.

   Synonyms:

   rancor, acrimony, malice

2. (in a video game) the targeting for attack of a player character by an enemy, and the circumstance-specific strength of that targeting for any particular character; hate; aggro: Use the character’s ranged attack to get enmity.

   Your tank needs to be spamming “Provoke” at that mob to increase his enmity, or else it’s going to turn and target your mages.

   Use the character’s ranged attack to get enmity.

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enmity British  

/ ˈɛnmɪtɪ /

noun

1. a feeling of hostility or ill will, as between enemies; antagonism

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• enmities
  plural

Etymology

Origin of enmity

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English enemite, enmite, from Old French enemi(s)tie, from unattested Vulgar Latin inimīcitāt- (stem of inimīcitās ), equivalent to Latin inimīc(us) “(personal ) enemy” + -itāt- abstract noun suffix; see enemy, -ity

Explanation

Enmity means intense hostility. If you're a football fanatic, you feel enmity for your opposing team. Enmity comes from the same Latin root as enemy, and means the state of being an enemy. If you have always hated someone, you have a history of enmity with that person. Enmity is stronger than antagonism or animosity, which imply competitive feeling but don't go all the way to enemy status. Hopefully you are a peacemaker and don't experience too much enmity in your life.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

enmity enmities

That leaves “Beef,” Lee Sung Jin’s anthology series about enmity, envy and the multiple ways that blood orange juice can be made, as the presumptive front-runner.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026

There’s personal enmity between the CEOs, my colleagues report.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

Meeting face-to-face, the enmity continued as the two donned hard hats and traded blows over the true cost of renovating Federal Reserve buildings.

From BBC ● Apr. 29, 2026

For that matter, his parasitic or symbiotic relationship with Jeffrey Epstein has been a matter of public record since at least 2003, when the Harvard Crimson earned his eternal enmity by reporting on it.

From Salon ● Nov. 30, 2025

But it was an enmity controlled from above—by nobles who were not sincerely anxious for each other’s blood.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

As music “that transcended enmities to forge a connection between all the people born of this land,” Vargas Llosa writes, channeling Toño’s enthusiasm, the vals is the exemplary art form of a “mongrel nation.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026

But its removal lit up social media, rekindling historic enmities.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2025

Libyans from across the fragmented country have driven through old front lines regardless of bitter enmities to deliver aid to flood-stricken Derna this week, putting aside years of conflict between their divided leaders.

From Reuters ● Sep. 14, 2023

But some supporters of the current leadership fear a court case may simply bring some of the old enmities and issues back to the fore.

From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2023

It was a “world criss-crossed by numerous patron-client relationships and family ties, in which major centers vied with one another in enmities that could endure for centuries.”

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

Related Words

• acrimony
• alienation
• animosity
• animus
• antagonism
• antipathy
• bad blood
• bitterness
• dislike
• hatred
• hostility
• ill will
• loathing
• malice
• rancor