Word Direct Answers

What does "challenge" mean?

Challenge: The act of a sentry in halting any one who appears at his post, and demanding the countersign.

Additional senses

  1. 2.A claim or demand. [Obs.] There must be no challenge of superiority. Collier.
  2. 3.(Hunting) The opening and crying of hounds at first finding the scent of their game.
  3. 4.(Law) An exception to a juror or to a member of a court martial, coupled with a demand that he should be held incompetent to act; the claim of a party that a certain person or persons shall not sit in trial upon him or his cause. Blackstone 6. An exception to a person as not legally qualifed to vote. The challenge must be made when the ballot is offered. [U. S.] Challenge to the array (Law), an exception to the whole panel. -- Challenge to the favor, the alleging a special cause, the sufficiency of which is to be left to those whose duty and office it is to decide upon it. -- Challenge to the polls, an exception taken to any one or more of the individual jurors returned. -- Peremptory challenge, a privilege sometimes allowed to defendants, of challenging a certain number of jurors (fixed by statute in different States) without assigning any cause. -- Principal challenge, that which the law allows to be sufficient if found to be true.
  4. 5.To call to a contest of any kind; to call to answer; to defy. I challenge any man to make any pretense to power by right of fatherhood. Locke.
  5. 6.To call, invite, or summon to answer for an offense by personal combat. By this I challenge him to single fight. Shak.
  6. 7.To claim as due; to demand as a right. Challenge better terms. Addison.
  7. 8.To censure; to blame. [Obs.] He complained of the emperors . . . and challenged them for that he had no greater revenues . . . from them. Holland.
  8. 9.(Mil.) To question or demand the countersign from (one who attempts to pass the lines); as, the sentinel challenged us, with "Who comes there"
  9. 10.To take exception to; question; as, to challenge the accuracy of a statement or of a quotation.
  10. 11.(Law) To object to or take exception to, as to a juror, or member of a court.
  11. 12.To object to the reception of the vote of, as on the ground that the person in not qualifed as a voter. [U. S.] To challenge to the array, favor, polls. See under Challenge, n.
  12. 13.To assert a right; to claim a place. Where nature doth with merit challenge. Shak.

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