The paper follows specific features of the concept CHALLENGE and its comprehension in terms of the English-speaking culture. Present-day meanings and uses of the target lexeme are analyzed on the basis of British and American mass media. Etymology dictionaries and historical texts used within the framework of the present article are aimed at discovering shifts in the word’s meaning and demonstrating the building of the word meaning process. The major focus of the research is the analysis of various English corpora, which makes it possible to come to conclusions concerning the semantics of the target lexeme on the basis of large sets of original English texts.