agonistic

1. 1.

   of or relating to the athletic contests held in ancient Greece
2. 2.

   striving to overcome in argument

   “a dialectical and agonistic approach”

   Synonymsagonisticalcombative

   Similarcompetitive
3. 3.

   struggling for effect

   “agonistic poses”

   Synonymsstrained

   Similaraffected

Questions about agonistic

What does agonistic mean?

agonistic means "of or relating to the athletic contests held in ancient Greece". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in agonistic?

agonistic has 4 syllables: a-go-ni-stic. The stress falls on "ni".

What is another word for agonistic?

Close synonyms include agonistical, combative, strained. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is agonistic a common word?

agonistic is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.