combatant

Inherited from late Middle English combataunt, from Middle French combatant. Doublet of combattant.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒm.bə.tənt/

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• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /kəm.ˈbæ.tənt/, /ˈkɑm.bə.tənt/

combatant (plural combatants)

1. A person engaged in combat, often armed.

   Gladiators were combatants who fought to the death to entertain the public.

   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Come hither, you that would be combatants:
     Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favour,
     Quite to forget this quarrel and the cause.

   • 1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 3, in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano‎, volume 1, London: for the author, page 112:

     On the passage, one day, for the diversion of those gentlemen, all the boys were called on the quarter deck, and were paired proportionably, and then made to fight; after which the gentlemen gave the combatants from five to nine shillings each.

   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:

     If any combatant was struck down, and unable to recover his feet, his squire or page might enter the lists, and drag his master out of the press; but in that case the knight was adjudged vanquished […]

   • 1992, Naguib Mahfouz, chapter 48, in William M. Hutchins, Angele Botros Samaan, transl., Sugar Street‎, New York: Anchor Books, published 1993, page 271:

     “ […] Don’t you realize that alcohol is an essential part of heroism? The combatant and the drunkard are brothers, you genius.”

• battler
• fighter

• contractor combatant
• enemy combatant
• illegal combatant
• non-combatant
• surface combatant

combatant (comparative more combatant, superlative most combatant)

1. Contending; disposed to contend.
   • 1641, Ben Jonson, The Magnetic Lady‎, New York: Henry Holt, published 1914, act III, scene 5, page 65:

     Their valours are not yet so combatant,
     Or truly antagonistick, as to fight;

2. Involving combat.
   • 1921, John Dos Passos, Three Soldiers‎, New York: Modern Library, published 1932, Part Two, Chapter 1, p. 71:

     He wished he were in a combatant service; he wanted to fight, fight.

3. Alternative form of combattant (“in heraldry: in a fighting position”)
   • 1846, William Newton, Display of Heraldry, page 84:

     Or, two lions combatant gules, armed and langued (that is, claws and tongue) azure, is borne by the name of Wycombe; Azure , two lions combatant or, by the name of Carter; Azure , two lions combatant guardant argent, by  […]

combatant (feminine singular combatante, masculine plural combatans, feminine plural combatantes)

1. present participle of combatre
2. (may be preceded by en, invariable) gerund of combatre

Borrowed from French combattant.

combatant m or n (feminine singular combatantă, masculine plural combatanți, feminine and neuter plural combatante)

1. fighting