Noun: enemy
| Singular | enemy |
| Plural | enemies |
Sample Sentences
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under enemy duress
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He made a lot of enemies after reducing the working hours in his department.
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You may not want any enemies, but sometimes, your enemies choose you.
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If you're not with me, then you're my enemy. [2005, George Lucas, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, spoken by Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen):]
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Garrus: Fist knows you're coming. We'll have a better chance if we all work together.
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Wrex: My people have a saying: Seek the enemy of your enemy, and you will find a friend. [2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel:]
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I am a known enemy and I cannot say more than I already said. And my books and my articles and my magazine- whatever could happen to the publication has already happened. What else? They can kill me. OK, you know, nobody promised me that I'm going to live forever. [2022 March 13, Yevgenia Albats, 10:01 from the start, in Journalist risking jail to report from inside Russia speaks out, CNN:]
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Rally together against a common enemy.
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The very thing the 16 skiers and snowboarders had sought — fresh, soft snow — instantly became the enemy. Somewhere above, a pristine meadow cracked in the shape of a lightning bolt, slicing a slab nearly 200 feet across and 3 feet deep. Gravity did the rest. [2012 December 26, John Branch, “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2013:]
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The building was destroyed by enemy bombing.
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Use gadgets like Nakishkas to fend off enemies. [2008, “Story Mode”, in Cory in the House: Instruction Booklet, Burbank, California: Disney Interactive Studios; Nintendo, page 8:]
Nouns inflected like enemy
clitoridectomy,
royal jelly,
whoopsy,
surrogacy,
urinary,
rastrography,
renoscopy,
sourtop blueberry,
forcible entry,
superficiary,
lipidosity,
potability,
phonography,
hyperproperty,
greenery,
conjugality,
ring singularity,
Brittany,
ignobility,
obscurity, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English enemy, enemye, enmy, borrowed from Old French enemi, anemi (Modern French ennemi), from Latin inimīcus, from in- (“not”) + amīcus (“friend”). Displaced Middle English fend (“enemy”), from Old English fēond (“enemy”), which survived into Modern English as fiend, but with a different meaning. Doublet of inimic. See: Middle English Nouns '
enemy', French Nouns '
ennemi', Latin Nouns '
inimīcus', Middle English Nouns '
fend'.