We have "best friends" and "close friends", because you give first importance to them. Like that, what should I call an enemy who is first enemy? I.e. you want to hurt him most then the rest of your enemies. What should we call them?
asked Aug 13, 2014 at 6:46
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6Best Friend antonym is Worst Enemy.– BenCommented Aug 13, 2014 at 8:40
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4 Answers
As per Wikipedia, an archenemy, archfoe, archvillain, or nemesis is the principal enemy of someone or something. In vernacular English, archenemy and nemesis are the two from the four above that are actually used commonly.
There's no single English word to describe the single most important enemy in which case you need to combine two words:
- Primary Adversary
- Main Opponent
- Sole Archenemy or Sole Nemesis
Note to the OP: While archenemy has no friendly connotation, nemesis can also be used to refer to friendly rivalry.
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2Not a criticism but note that all of these, apart from the last, sound rather superhero-comic. I doubt you'd refer to an "archenemy" or "archfoe" of some historical king, for example. Commented Aug 13, 2014 at 8:03
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1@DavidRicherby Agree, the two primary words used commonly in vernacular are archenemy and nemesis.– K -Commented Aug 13, 2014 at 8:21
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1arch-rival is also used a lot in newspapers, an etymological note on nemesis too; the word started as the ancient Greek for a spirit of divine retribution - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(mythology)– MD-TechCommented Aug 13, 2014 at 9:39
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The idiomatic opposite of Best Friend is Worst Enemy.
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2I would say to not use this, because "worst enemy" is ambiguous. Is your worst enemy the enemy that is worst for you, or worst at being an enemy. Commented Aug 13, 2014 at 11:54
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18@TheGuywithTheHat, Idiomatically, it means the former, and is never used as the latter except maybe as a joke.– BenCommented Aug 13, 2014 at 12:14
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11@TheGuywithTheHat It's not ambiguous at all. The person who is worst at being my enemy is my best friend and, if I wanted to talk about that person, I'd say "best friend". Therefore, it's reasonable to infer that, when anybody other than Amelia Bedelia says "worst enemy", they mean their archnemesis. Commented Aug 13, 2014 at 12:15
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4@DavidRicherby Counterexample: Person1: "Did you see [movie]? [badguy] really sucked!" Person2: "Yeah, [badguy] is like, the worst enemy ever!"– BenubirdCommented Aug 13, 2014 at 13:50
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3@DavidRicherby Yes, that makes more sense then. I think the distinction between "my worst enemy" and "the worst enemy" is worth making, as it really changes the possible interpretations.– BenubirdCommented Aug 13, 2014 at 14:02
You are probably referring to an arch-enemy (archenemy):
- a principal enemy
Examples of arch-enemy:
The two politicians were archenemies.
The country went to war with its archenemy.
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I suppose you could use sworn enemy per CALD:
sworn enemy: Sworn enemies are people who will always hate each other.
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