# agon
## English
### Etymology

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

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈæ.ɡəʊn/
* (US) IPA: /ˈæ.ɡoʊn/
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Hyphenation: a‧gon

### Noun

agon (countable and uncountable, plural agons or agones)
* (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.
** 2023 October 17, Volodymyr Yermolenko, “Europe seeks peace, not war. But will it be ready if war comes to Europe?”, in The Guardian‎, →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.
* (countable) An intellectual conflict or apparent competition of ideas.
** 1986 March 23, Harold Bloom, “Freud, the Greatest Modern Writer”, in New York Times‎: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; […]
* (countable) A contest in ancient Greece, as in athletics or music, in which prizes were awarded.
* (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

* agony
* agonism
* antagonism
* antagonist
* protagonism
* protagonist

#### Translations

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

### Anagrams

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

## Esperanto
### Noun

agon
* accusative singular of ago

## Latin
### Etymology

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

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈa.ɡoːn/, [ˈäɡoːn]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈa.ɡon/, [ˈäːɡon]

### Noun

agōn m (genitive agōnis); third declension
* a contest

#### Declension

Third-declension noun.

#### Descendants

* → English: agon (“struggle”)
* → German: Agon
* Italian: agone
* → Portuguese: ágon
* → 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’s 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: /aˈɡɔːn/

### Verb

agon
* to go, depart

#### Conjugation

$^1$ 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
* plural present indicative of āgan

## Polish
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈa.ɡɔn/
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -aɡɔn
* Syllabification: a‧gon

### Etymology 1

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn).

#### Noun

agon m inan
* (Ancient Greece, historical) agon (contest)

##### Related terms

* agonalny
* agoniczny
* agonistyczny
* agonia
* agonista
* agonistyka

### Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

#### Noun

agon
* genitive plural of agona

### Further reading

* agon in Polish dictionaries at PWN

## Portuguese
### Noun

agon m (plural agons or agones)
* agon (a struggle between the protagonist and antagonist)

## Vietnamese
### Etymology

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

### Pronunciation

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

### Noun

agon
* argon