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sparring partner
[ spahr-ing pahrt-ner ]
noun
- a boxer who spars with and otherwise serves to train a boxer who is preparing for a bout.
- a person who serves to sharpen and expand one’s thinking through frequent friendly debate:
This provocative political writer was the frequent sparring partner of a popular talk show host on TV.
sparring partner
/ ˈspɑːrɪŋ /
noun
- a person who practises with a boxer during training
- a person with whom one has friendly arguments
Word History and Origins
Origin of sparring partner1
Idioms and Phrases
An individual with whom one enjoys arguing, as in Jim's my best sparring partner . This expression alludes to boxing, where since about 1900 it has denoted the person one practices or trains with. [Mid-1900s] Also see spar with .Example Sentences
At the very least, he would make a thoughtful and high-minded sparring partner for Clinton in the debates that lie ahead.
Johansson needed a sparring partner, and a young, brash man, just a year out of the amateurs, volunteered.
SMUG is willing to fight it out and has a willing sparring partner in Lively, who has been sued five times by gay activists.
She was with her on most of the major swims of the 1970s, is a friend, adviser, and sparring partner.
He had had no sparring partner, and his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient.
Bit thick, I mean to say, a sparring-partner going at him like that.
Then he was a sparring partner, I think they call it, for a prizefighter.
He's been sparring partner of one of the champions and he thinks a good deal of himself.
It was the fact that Bugs Butler was lowering himself to extend his powers against a sparring-partner that shocked Mr. Burrowes.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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