agon

See also: Agon, ágon, aĝon, agôn, and agöṅ

English

WOTD – 10 January 2006

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *h₂ger-der.

Proto-Hellenic *agéřřō

Ancient Greek ἀγείρω (ageírō)

Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn)bor.

Latin agōnbor.

English agon

From Latin agōn, from Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn, “contest”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈæ.ɡəʊn/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈæ.ɡoʊn/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: a‧gon

Noun

agon (countable and uncountable, plural agons or agones)

1. (countable) A struggle or contest; conflict; especially between the protagonist and antagonist in a literary work.
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 134:

     It was not ecological pressure or shortages of protein, as anthropologist Marvin Harris has claimed; institutionalized violence, as opposed to the stylized agons of hunters over grievances, was the shadow side of the Neolithic Revolution.

   • 1999, Seamus Heaney, “Introduction”, in Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page xiv:

     One way of reading Beowulf is to think of it as three agons in the hero's life[.]

   • 2023 October 17, Volodymyr Yermolenko, “Europe seeks peace, not war. But will it be ready if war comes to Europe?”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     The other ethical system is that of agon. Agon is a battlefield. We enter agon not to exchange, but to fight. We dream of winning but are also prepared to lose – including to lose ourselves, even in the literal sense of dying for a great cause.

2. (countable) An intellectual conflict or apparent competition of ideas.
   • 1986 March 23, Harold Bloom, “Freud, the Greatest Modern Writer”, in New York Times‎^[2]:

     Freud's originality stemmed from his aggression and ambition in his agon with biology.

   • 2022, China Miéville, chapter 6, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC:

     The point, though, is that to fully and uncritically surrender to such agon against individuals is to invite one's own ethical degeneration; […]

3. (countable) A contest in ancient Greece, as in athletics or music, in which prizes were awarded.
4. (uncountable) A two-player board game played on a hexagonally-tiled board, popular in Victorian times.

   Synonym: queen's guard

Derived terms

• agonal

Related terms

• agonism
• agony
• antagonism
• antagonist
• protagonism
• protagonist

Translations

a struggle or contest

• Czech: agón m
• Finnish: taistelu (fi)
• German: Agon (de) m
• Italian: agone (it) m
• Polish: agon (pl) m
• Portuguese: agon (pt) m

a test of will

• Finnish: taistelu (fi)
• German: Agon (de) m
• Italian: agone (it) m
• Polish: agon (pl) m

a contest in ancient Greece

• Czech: agón m
• Finnish: agon
• German: Agon (de) m
• Italian: agone (it) m
• Polish: agon (pl) m

a two-player boardgame

• Finnish: agon
• Italian: agone (it) m
• Polish: agon (pl) m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• French: ^{(please verify)} agôn (fr) m
• Japanese: ^{(please verify)} 懸賞付き競技（けんしょうつききょうぎ, kensyō tsuki kyōgi）

Anagrams

• Gano, Gaon, Goan, Nago, Noga, gaon, goan

Esperanto

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈaɡon/
• Rhymes: -aɡon
• Syllabification: a‧gon

Noun

agon

1. accusative singular of ago

Indonesian

Pronunciation

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /ˈaɡon/ [ˈa.ɡɔn]
• Rhymes: -aɡon
• Syllabification: a‧gon

Etymology 1

Learned borrowing from Latin agōn (“contest”), from Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn, “contest”).

Noun

agon (plural agon-agon)

1. (drama) agon

Etymology 2

Internationalism

Noun

agon (plural agon-agon)

1. (cartography, navigation) agon, agonic line, line of no variation

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Sundanese [Term?]

Noun

agon

1. to clear the rice field area before planting rice

Further reading

• “agon”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016

Latin

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *h₂ger-der.

Proto-Hellenic *agéřřō

Ancient Greek ἀγείρω (ageírō)

Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn)bor.

Latin agōn

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn, “contest”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈa.ɡoːn]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈaː.ɡon]

Noun

agōn m (genitive agōnis); third declension

1. a contest

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	agōn	agōnēs
genitive	agōnis	agōnum
dative	agōnī	agōnibus
accusative	agōnem	agōnēs
ablative	agōne	agōnibus
vocative	agōn	agōnēs

Descendants

• → English: agon (“struggle”)
• → German: Agon
• → Italian: agone
• → Polish: agon
• → Portuguese: agon
• → Translingual: (from genitive plural) Agonum

References

• “agon”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "agon", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “agon”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “agon”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
• Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary

Middle English

Alternative forms

• ago, agan

Etymology

From Old English āgān (“to go out”), from Proto-West Germanic *uʀgān.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /aˈɡɔːn/

Verb

agon

1. to go, depart

Conjugation

Conjugation of agon (irregular, suppletive)

infinitive	(to) agon, ago
	present tense	past tense
1st-person singular	ago	ayede, awente
2nd-person singular	agost, agest	ayedest, awentest
3rd-person singular	agoth, ageth	ayede, awente
subjunctive singular	ago
imperative singular		—
plural1	agon, ago	ayeden, ayede, awenten, awente
imperative plural	agoth, ago	—
participles	agoynge, agonde	agon, ago

¹ Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.

References

• “agōn, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Old English

Verb

āgon

1. plural present indicative of āgan

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈa.ɡɔn/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɡɔn
• Syllabification: a‧gon

Etymology 1

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *h₂ger-der.

Proto-Hellenic *agéřřō

Ancient Greek ἀγείρω (ageírō)

Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn)lbor.

Polish agon

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn).

Noun

agon m inan

1. (Ancient Greece, historical) agon (contest)

Declension

Declension of agon

	singular	plural
nominative	agon	agony
genitive	agonu	agonów
dative	agonowi	agonom
accusative	agon	agony
instrumental	agonem	agonami
locative	agonie	agonach
vocative	agonie	agony

Related terms

adjectives

• agonalny
• agoniczny
• agonistyczny

nouns

• agonia
• agonista
• agonistyka

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Noun

agon

1. genitive plural of agona

Further reading

• “agon”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[3] (in Polish)

Portuguese

Noun

agon m (plural agons or agones)

1. agon (a struggle between the protagonist and antagonist)

Further reading

• “agon”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026

Vietnamese

Chemical element (edit)
Ar Atomic number 18 agon
Classification data Period 3 Group 18 Block p-block Class noble gas
Previous: ← clo (Cl)
Next: kali (K) →

Etymology

From French argon, from English argon, from New Latin argon, from Ancient Greek ἀργόν (argón).

Pronunciation

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ʔaː˧˧ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧], [ʔaːk̚˧˦ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧], [ʔaːk̚˧˨ʔ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʔaː˧˧ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧], [ʔaːk̚˦˧˥ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧], [ʔaːk̚˨˩ʔ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧]
• (Saigon) IPA^(key): [ʔaː˧˧ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧], [ʔaːk̚˦˥ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧], [ʔaːk̚˨˩˨ ɣəwŋ͡m˧˧]
• Phonetic spelling: a gông, ác gông, ạc gông

Noun

agon

1. argon