Also-ran

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person or animal who competed in a race, or other competition, but did not win.
  2. 2
    a contestant who loses the contest wordnet
  3. 3
    A loser; a person or thing soon to be forgotten. figuratively

    "It also turned Palmer from an also-ran into a challenger."

Synonyms

All synonyms
aspirantbankruptboobycandidatechopped livercipher

Example

More examples

"It also turned Palmer from an also-ran into a challenger."

Etymology

From the world of horse race betting, where lists of winners would be published with non-paying positions printed in a block under the heading “Also Ran”.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.