fighter
Americannoun
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fighters
plural
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a boxer; pugilist.
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Military. an aircraft designed to seek out and destroy enemy aircraft in the air and to protect bomber aircraft.
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a person who fights, struggles, resists, etc.
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a person with the will, courage, determination, ability, or disposition to fight, struggle, resist, etc.
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an animal, as a dog, trained to fight or having the disposition to fight.
noun
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a person who fights, esp a professional boxer
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a person who has determination
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military an armed aircraft designed for destroying other aircraft
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of fighter
before 1000; Middle English; Old English fēohtere. See fight, -er 1
Explanation
Someone who battles or brawls with other people is a fighter. Some fighters, like boxers, do it professionally, while others just have a tendency to fight. If you have a habit of getting into scuffles or fistfights, you're a fighter, and when you watch a boxing match, you might pick one of the two fighters to root for. An animal might also be described as a fighter: lions are natural fighters, and a fish struggling hard on the end of a hook is a fighter. Other fighters work heroically for a belief or ideal: "She was a fighter in the struggle for civil rights."
Vocabulary lists containing fighter
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Japanese fighter Naoya Inoue said Tete was a "wonderful boxer".
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
Islam Makhachev cemented his status as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world with a commanding victory over Ian Machado Garry to defend his welterweight title at UFC 330 in Philadelphia.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
In June, French fighter jets deployed to NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission also shot down a drone in Latvia, marking the first time the alliance's rapid-reaction force has downed a stray drone over the country.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
He inserted himself into negotiations for the Air Force One and the F-35 jet fighter programs, directed design changes to the Constellation-class frigate and championed the creation of Trump-class battleships.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
But one of the first problems she ran into was that everybody wanted to fly fighter planes.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
In consultation with NATO, two F-16 jet fighters shot down the naval drone, which was spotted east of the Romanian Black Sea city of Constanta near a gas platform with active workers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
For a long stretch, it’s like watching two heavyweight fighters circle each other round after round without throwing a punch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
When the capital came under siege by Islamist fighters, they managed to impose a partial blockade there and total blockades elsewhere including the city of Ségou.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
Some of the fighters subsequently settled in the area with their families, with some reportedly still living in the formerly ethnically mixed region, known as Sari Kani in Kurdish.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
The riders have fallen back behind the line of fighters on the ground, and the shamblers are quickening their pace as they move toward us.
From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
