From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishadversaryad‧ver‧sa‧ry /ˈædvəsəri $ ˈædvərseri/ ●○○ noun (plural adversaries) [countable] formalENEMY a country or person you are fighting or competing against SYN opponent his old adversary
Examples from the Corpus
adversary• Like the trained warrior that I was, I knew not to oppose an adversary head-on.• By 2015, two populations, composed of very different ethnic groups, faced each other as adversaries across a great divide.• The bipolar adversary process often involves paying little attention to these wider interests.• The peace talks proved that even great adversaries were capable of cooperation.• Symes grabbed his adversary by the throat and wrestled him to the ground.• The significant discontinuities elsewhere support the thesis of adversary politics.• Quijano wanted to ensure success against his political adversaries.• But the same is not true of our potential adversaries.• The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven.• The adversary politics thesis developed by the reformers has also been variously challenged.• Yet there is that nearly irresistible need for lawyers to smear their adversary, even a grieving widow.old adversary• Again, the atmosphere is friendly with everyone recounting the day's activities whilst making new friends and meeting old adversaries.• But it will also be needed to pacify old adversaries, and to prevent small crises from becoming big ones.• The two old adversaries are seeded to meet in Tuesday's final.• The two old adversaries, now both in their early sixties, have never met in person. 