The word that we will consider today may seem outdated to someone, but it is a misleading impression. Old age and bookishness are often confused. Let's talk today about an adverb with French roots. In other words, the meaning of the word “counterpart” is in the area of ​​special attention.
Origin
One thing is the old age of the word, and another is obsolescence. The first says that the definition in the language has been around for a long time, and the second - that it is about to come out of active speech. We hope this will not happen with the meaning of the word “vis-a-vis”. Or, at least, we will have time to tell the reader everything necessary. So the story.
Borrowing from the French, dating from the end of the 18th century. It can be either an adverb or a noun. Depending on the part of speech and translation of meanings, there may be two:
- "Face to face".
- "The one who sits opposite."
It is written in French like this: vis-a-vis. The emphasis in the Russian version falls on the last syllable. Although, it seems, there is no other way to pronounce the word. But anything happens.
Value
Now we proceed directly to the meaning of the word “counterpart” in the explanatory dictionary:
- One against the other (adverb).
- One who is opposite (noun).
It is important that the word is not inclined and, when it is necessary to choose the possessive pronoun correctly, control by meaning is included. That is, if a man sits or stands opposite you, he will be “your vis-a-vis”, and if a woman is “your vis-a-vis”.
Here it must be said that although the word is beautiful, it is not clear what to do with it. For example, you no longer use it if you are sitting at the holiday table. In a normal, everyday situation, the noun sounds pretentious. But resourceful people found a way out. An adverb and a noun in one person settled in sports, where they have it as a synonym for "opponent" or "rival".
Synonyms
The difficulty indicated above will allow us to discuss in more detail the replacements for the object of study, but even if you keep in mind the reservation about sports, there will be few analogues:
- enemy:
- rival
- opponent;
- competitor.
And one more thing: sometimes players who occupy the same position on the field in different teams, and sometimes those who directly play against each other, are called in a similar way. For example, if Messi is an attacker, then his counterpart can be either a defender or an attacker of another team. By the way, a similar approach can be applied to other professions. For example, another writer or critic is the opponent of the writer.
We hope that we have clearly explained the meaning of the word “vis-a-vis”. The topic was not easy for us, because the word has a strange status in the language: on the one hand, it is not outdated, and on the other, very few people use it. Even from sports commentators the noun has not been heard for a long time.