n.
- A call to engage in a contest, fight, or competition: a challenge to a duel.
- An act or statement of defiance; a call to confrontation: a challenge to the government's authority.
- A demand for explanation or justification; a calling into question: a challenge to a theory.
- A sentry's call to an unknown party for proper identification.
- A test of one's abilities or resources in a demanding but stimulating undertaking: a career that offers a challenge.
- A claim that a vote is invalid or that a voter is unqualified.
- Law. A formal objection to the inclusion of a prospective juror in a jury.
- Immunology. The induction or evaluation of an immune response in an organism by administration of a specific antigen to which it has been sensitized.
v., -lenged, -leng·ing, -leng·es. v.tr.
- To call to engage in a contest, fight, or competition: challenged me to a game of chess.
- To invite with defiance; dare: challenged him to contradict her. See synonyms at defy.
- To take exception to; call into question; dispute: a book that challenges established beliefs.
- To order to halt and be identified, as by a sentry.
- Law. To take formal objection to (a prospective juror).
- To question the qualifications of (a voter) or validity of (a vote).
- To have due claim to; call for: events that challenge our attention.
- To summon to action, effort, or use; stimulate: a problem that challenges the imagination.
- Immunology. To induce or evaluate an immune response in (an organism) by administering a specific antigen to which it has been sensitized.
- To make or give voice to a challenge.
- To begin barking upon picking up the scent. Used of hunting dogs.
[Middle English chalenge, from Old French, from Latin calumnia, trickery, false accusation. See calumny. V., from Middle English chalengen, from Old French chalangier, from Latin calumniārī, from calumnia.]
challengeable chal'lenge·a·ble adj.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
