candidate.
A person who seeks to be elected or appointed to a position or privilege.
Meaning & usage
A person who seeks to be elected or appointed to a position or privilege.
Smith announced he was the party's candidate for the next election.
All candidates who miss the deadline or make a spelling mistake in their applications are automatically rejected.
A person who is thought likely or worthy to gain a position or privilege.
A participant in an examination.
Candidates must remain silent for the entirety of the exam.
Someone or something likely or suited to undergo or be chosen for a purpose.
After being presented with various suitors, she decided none of the candidates were the kind of man she was looking for.
A student taking a degree who has finished the coursework but has other remaining requirements such as a dissertation.
a Ph.D. candidate
The recipient of certain academic degrees, now mainly awarded in Scandinavia.
A gene which may play a role in a given disease.
Where this word comes from
From Latin candidātus (“a person who is standing for public office”, noun), from candidus (“dazzling white, shining, clear”) + -ātus, -āta, -ātum (participial adjective-forming suffix), in reference to Roman candidates wearing bleached white togas as a symbol of purity at a public forum. By surface analysis, candid + -ate (noun-forming suffix).
To stand as a candidate for an office, typically for a religious one.
To make or name (something) as a candidate (to be chosen or deemed suitable for a purpose).
Where this word comes from
From Latin candidātus (“a person who is standing for public office”, noun), from candidus (“dazzling white, shining, clear”) + -ātus, -āta, -ātum (participial adjective-forming suffix), in reference to Roman candidates wearing bleached white togas as a symbol of purity at a public forum. By surface analysis, candid + -ate (noun-forming suffix).
To make white; to whitewash.
Where this word comes from
From Latin candidātus (“dressed in white”, adjective); see Etymology 1 for further derivations. By surface analysis, candid + -ate (verb-forming suffix).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.