formidable foe
2
6.8
- noun
:
enemigo formidable
- The knight prepared himself to fight a formidable foe in the upcoming tournament.
- face a formidable foe
- a more formidable foe
- the most formidable foe
You know, they would have been formidable foes and useful allies for people to have.
- You know, they would have been formidable foes and useful allies for people to have.
Examples
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Despite the insubstantial mustache, he'd proven himself to be a formidable foe.
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If you could have mastered them, you would have been a formidable foe.
Fiction book (1998) -
Still, they face a formidable foe in the first round.
Blog text (16) -
You know, they would have been formidable foes and useful allies for people to have.
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So these are ancient, formidable foes, but they actually have one weakness, which is their envelope.
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Now armed with forty-plus years of research, we are ready to face this formidable foe.
Academic text (2010) -
In this struggle, the religious right has proved itself a formidable foe, represented by three wealthy law firms: the American Center for Law and Justice, Thomas More Law Center, and American Civil Rights Union.
Academic text (2006) -
So, you know, he's a a formidable foe, but he's also an incredibly incompetent autocrat.
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Among the sharpshooter's most formidable foes, for example, are egg parasitoids—insects that unabashedly lay their eggs inside sharpshooter eggs.
Academic text (2001) -
In the ring, he faced a formidable foe who had won numerous championships.
Synonyms
45
8.1
A powerful enemy or thing that causes someone's defeat
8
4.8
A person who is someone's main enemy in a long rivalry
5
7.8
A person's main enemy who often opposes them
3
4.1
A person who fights bravely and with great force in battle
1
8.0
The main enemy in a story who is very powerful and evil
The main enemy someone has for a long time
A powerful character who opposes the hero and creates major conflict
How Formidable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'formidable' = causing fear or respect and 'foe' = opponent, so together they clearly denote a strong, intimidating opponent. This structure and sense are cross-linguistically common and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Formidable foe comes from an old sense of formidable, meaning something that causes fear, and foe, meaning enemy. The picture is an enemy who seems very powerful and frightening, so people feel afraid and find them hard to beat, which is why it means 'a strong, hard-to-defeat opponent'.