exponent
/ɪkˈspəʊnənt
/ /ɛkˈspəʊnənt/noun
1A person who supports an idea or theory and tries to persuade people of its truth or benefits: an early exponent of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas...
- Readers of this column will be aware, I am sure, that I have been a big exponent of the idea of a winter break in the past.
- The recently deceased Lord was the main exponent of the idea that aid did not work.
- Verdi is an exponent of the same ideas, the same sense of statecraft.
Synonyms
advocate, supporter, proponent, upholder, backer, defender, champion;
promoter, propagandist, spokesperson, spokesman, spokeswoman, speaker;
campaigner, fighter, battler, crusader, missionary, evangelist, pioneer, apostle;
enthusiast, apologist, arguer, expounder
1.1A person who demonstrates a particular skill to a high standard: he’s the world’s leading exponent of country rock guitar...
- Wooden clubs meet and bamboo poles clatter as with split second accuracy, the exponents display their skill in the centuries old martial art form.
- He has spent the last ten years performing in Europe, after leaving his native America where he had become one of the leading exponents of the Mississippi Delta Blues style of playing.
- In other countries Klimt was hailed as a successful and important artist and one of the leading Austrian exponents of Jugendstil.
Synonyms
practitioner, performer, player;
interpreter, presenter
rare executant
2 Mathematics A quantity representing the power to which a given number or expression is to be raised, usually expressed as a raised symbol beside the number or expression (e.g. 3 in 23 = 2 × 2 × 2).He was one of the first to use exponents to represent powers and he used mathematics as a model for the natural sciences....
- Such power laws with exponents close to 2 have been shown for several biopolymers, where the polymer concentration corresponds to that of gel preparation.
- Although we now think of logarithms as the exponents to which one must raise the base to get the required number, this is a modern way of thinking.
3 Linguistics A linguistic unit that realizes another, more abstract unit.One approach to these complex verb forms might be to analyse exponents of progressive and perfective aspect (be and have) as modifiers of the bare verb.
Origin
Late 16th century (as an adjective in the sense 'expounding'): from Latin exponent- 'putting out', from the verb exponere (see expound).