competitor

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French compétiteur or its source Latin competītor (“fellow candidate, rival”),^[2][3][4][5] an agent noun formed on competītus, the past participle of competō (“to strive for together, compete for”),^[6][2] from com- (“with”) and petītor (“seeker, candidate”), from petō (“to seek”).^[7][8] The OED points out that the stress on the second syllable shows the word came through French; from Latin it would have been stressed on the third or first.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

One who seeks something in rivalry with others, a rival: a1533, in Lord Berners's translation of Guevara's Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives 1534,^[6] Etymonline the 1530s,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1525–35.^[8]

Semantic evolution

For a time the word could also mean an associate who shares the same aim, a partner (1579–1681), a sense now obsolete.^[2][5] From the 1650s it was used of one placed in a contest.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as one with a claim opposed to another's, a rival.^[9] Modern dictionaries add the commercial rival, a business selling the same goods,^[6][5] and in biology an organism competing with another for resources.^[6]

Timeline

• a1533 – a rival.^[2][6]
• 1579 – an associate or partner (obsolete by 1681).^[2]
• 1656 – one placed in competition.^[2][3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person, team or other contestant that competes, for example in a race or contest.
2. A rival; especially a business that sells the same kind of goods or services as another.
3. (biology) An organism that competes with another for the same resources.

Word family

• competitorship

Related words

• compete
• competition
• competitive
• petition
• appetite

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.