exponent
4
6.2
- noun
- /ɪkˈspoʊnənt/
:
exponente
- Martin Luther King Jr. was a passionate exponent of civil rights and social justice.
- the most prominent exponent
- a prominent exponent
- leading exponents
That was, you know, John Stuart Mill, the great exponent of liberty of speech.
- That was, you know, John Stuart Mill, the great exponent of liberty of speech.
- Stella Adler, Harold Clurman, Robert Lewis, Sanford Meisner, these these were the great exponents of the later work of Stanislavski's life.
- So all of this stuff was boiled down into the first iteration of quantum mechanics, of which Paul Dirac here in the UK was one of the leading exponents.
- Not in this picture is you remember Frank Jewett, the exponent of conservatism who is head of Bell Labs and and the National Academies?
Examples
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One of the leading exponents of this idea was called John Perry Barlow.
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I've rarely found a more brilliant exponent of conservatism in the modern age.
Blog text (4) -
And he was a very prominent exponent of the idea that people should go out for their own interest.
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That was, you know, John Stuart Mill, the great exponent of liberty of speech.
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Well it so happens we have a well-known exponent of the art here with us.
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Burke, of course, has long been recognized as an exponent of the political interpretation of culture.
Academic text (1991) -
Like Khomeini, he was an exponent of the Islamic state.
Academic text (2010) -
Leon Garfield is one of the greatest exponents of historical fiction for children.
Blog text (11) -
The most prominent exponent of the big dish in the 1950s was the British astronomer, Sir Bernard Lovell.
Academic text (1991) -
The best-known exponent of conflict-based sociology is Karl Marx and his notion of class conflict.
Academic text (2005)
Synonyms
282
4.1
A person who supports a cause or policy in public
156
3.7
A person who strongly supports a cause or another person
104
5.2
A person who supports an idea, plan, or cause
31
4.2
A person who supports and encourages a cause or idea
11
7.4
A leading person who represents a movement's ideas and goals
7
6.0
A person who strongly supports and helps spread a new idea or cause early on
1
9.0
A person who explains ideas clearly, often in talks or writing
A person who supports and speaks for a cause
A person who supports and promotes an idea or cause
How Prominent
Surface Forms
Morphology
exponent = ex + ponent + ent
The form follows a familiar pattern (ex- + -ent, comparable to proponent/opponent) so learners may guess it means 'one who puts/sets forth' or 'representative', but the exact sense 'supporter/leading representative' is not fully predictable from the parts alone.
Etymology
Exponent comes from Latin parts ex- 'out' and ponere 'to put', the same root seen in position and pose. So an exponent is someone who 'puts forward' or explains an idea, which is why we call a leading supporter or speaker an exponent of a cause.