rival
A competitor (person, team, company, etc.) with the same goal as another, or striving to attain the same thing. Defeating a rival may be a primary or necessary goal of a competitor.
Adjective
- Having the same pretensions or claims; standing in competition for superiority.
- rival lovers
- rival claims or pretensions
- The strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen. - 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter I, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume...
Origin
Learned borrowing from Latin rīvālis (literally “person using the same stream as another”). By surface analysis, Latin rīvus + -al.
Derived
Noun
- A competitor (person, team, company, etc.) with the same goal as another, or striving to attain the same thing. Defeating a rival may be a primary or necessary goal of a competitor.
- Chris is my biggest rival in the 400-metre race.
- Every day is like survival / You're my lover, not my rival - 1983, “Karma Chameleon”, in Colour by Numbers, performed by Culture Club:
- The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you[…] "share the things you love with the...
- Someone or something with similar claims of quality or distinction as another.
- As a social historian, he has no rival.
- One having a common right or privilege with another; a partner.
- If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, / The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. - c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares...
Forms
Hyponyms
Related
Derived
archrival arch-rival corival nonrival rivaless rivalise rivalism rivality rivalization rivalize rivalless rivalmance rivalry rivalship rivalsome
Verb
- To oppose or compete with.
- to rival somebody in love
- To be equal to, or match, or to surpass another.
- But the Waverley is still the best-placed station of any British city, and gives the arriving stranger a first impression rivalled in Europe only by the exclusively watery station approach at Venice. - 1941 January, C....
- The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, […]. - 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery,...
- To strive to equal or excel; to emulate.
- to rival thunder in its rapid course - 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […],...