agon

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

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

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: a‧gon

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

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

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

agon

1. accusative singular of ago

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

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

agon (plural agon-agon)

1. (drama) agon

Internationalism

agon (plural agon-agon)

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

Borrowed from Sundanese [Term?]

agon

1. to clear the rice field area before planting rice

• “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

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

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

agōn m (genitive agōnis); third declension

1. a contest

Third-declension noun.

• “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

• ago, agan

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

• IPA^(key): /aˈɡɔːn/

agon

1. to go, depart

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

āgon

1. plural present indicative of āgan

• IPA^(key): /ˈa.ɡɔn/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɡɔn
• Syllabification: a‧gon

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn).

agon m inan

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

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

agon

1. genitive plural of agona

• agon in Polish dictionaries at PWN

agon m (plural agons or agones)

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

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

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

• (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

agon

1. argon