Counterdemonstrators

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. People who take to the streets to oppose a rally or march held by a opposing group
2. Protesters who gather in opposition to another demonstration and make their objection visible
3. Those who organize or join a counter protest aimed at opposing a rival public gathering

Etymology: Counterdemonstrators are the people who turn up to oppose a rally or march staged by another group, so the word is a plain compound: "counter-" added to "demonstrator". The first half comes from Middle English "counter-", which passed through Anglo-Norman "countre-" and Old French "contre-" from Latin "contrā", meaning "against" or "opposite". The second half is "demonstrator", a person who demonstrates, built on the verb "demonstrate", which was borrowed from Latin "dēmōnstrāre", "to point out" or "show clearly". Together the parts describe a crowd that stands against the crowd. The "demonstrate" in "demonstrator" also points back to the Latin verb's core sense of pointing something out, which is why a public protest and a demonstration of a product or theorem share one ancestor.