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
A spokesperson for Hezbollah, Israel’s archenemy on its northern border, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 11, 2024
“My dear brother, my archenemy, how did we come to this?”
From New York Times ● Dec. 19, 2023
The specificity of his doomsday prophecy should have been a hint that he was fundraising rather than girding for a confrontation with a new archenemy.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 24, 2023
Request Denied Mark Antony had his sights set on Parthia—long an archenemy of Rome.
From "Sterling Biographies®: Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen" by Susan Blackaby
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
Israel and Hezbollah are archenemies and have fought several wars in the past, the most recent a 34-day conflict in 2006 that left 1,200 dead in Lebanon and 160 in Israeli.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 7, 2023
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
Iraq gets boost by hosting Middle East conference: Arab heads of state and senior officials from the region, including archenemies Iran and Saudi Arabia, met Saturday at a conference hosted by Iraq.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 28, 2021
Sure, I love the idea of our family’s archenemies turning into sycophantic suck-ups, but when the strange actually materializes into reality, it definitely leaves you reeling.
From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
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.
