Archenemy
main enemy of someone
In literature, an archenemy (sometimes spelled as arch-enemy) or archnemesis is the main enemy of the protagonist—or sometimes, one of the other main characters—appearing as the most prominent and most-known enemy of the hero.
Etymology
The word archenemy originated around the mid-16th century, from the words arch- (from Greek ἄρχω archo meaning 'to lead') and enemy.
An archenemy may also be referred to as an archrival, archfoe, archvillain, or archnemesis, but an archenemy may also be distinguished from an archnemesis, with the latter being an enemy whom the hero cannot defeat (or who defeats the hero), even while not being a longstanding or consistent enemy to the hero.
The archenemy should not be confused with the proper meaning of Nemesis — the Greek goddess of justice, retribution, and vengeance — who delivered divine punishment on those who committed great offences against the gods and the world.
The public source identifies “Archenemy” as main enemy of someone. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Archenemy, main and enemy.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q145391. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Archenemy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.