respondent
Americannoun
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respondents
plural
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a person who responds or makes reply.
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Law. a defendant, especially in appellate and divorce proceedings.
adjective
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giving a response; answering; responsive.
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Law. being a respondent.
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Psychology. of or relating to behavior that occurs consistently in response to a particular stimulus.
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Obsolete. corresponding.
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of respondent
1520–30; < Latin respondent- (stem of respondēns ), present participle of respondēre. See respond, -ent
Explanation
A respondent is a person who gives an answer. For example, on some Monday mornings, your teacher might feel like she is talking to the walls — although she asks questions, none of the sleepy students are willing respondents. A respondent is a person who answers a question, letter, email message, survey, or anything else that requires a response. You can see the word respond, which means "answer or reply to" in respondent. If a poll reveals that bullying is the top concern regarding school safety, you know that many respondents checked the box marked "bullying."
Vocabulary lists containing respondent
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:
"Etihad was not the respondent and is unlikely to have had an independent right to participate in the proceedings," Severin said.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
I was playing a respondent to an ad for a meeting with an alien.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
"Indeed, our submission is that for this offending the respondent should be sentenced to life without parole," he said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
“We are outpricing ourselves and people have to choose feeding themselves/their family vs. taking their pet to the vet,” one respondent said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
The first respondent was Tapley Holland, who leaped the line at a bound, exclaiming, 'I am ready to die for my country!'
From A Flight in Spring In the car Lucania from New York to the Pacific coast and back, during April and May, 1898 by J. Harris (John Harris) Knowles
CensHERship found the number of respondents self-censoring as a result of shadowbanning had gone up, from 53% in 2025 to 65% this year.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
Daily AI usage among respondents ranked manager or above rose 16 percentage points from last year to 62%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
And one poll, carried out by Ipsos-BVA and published on Sunday, said 54 percent of respondents backed the high school student protests.
From Barron's ● Oct. 12, 2026
Only 30% of respondents said they had seen lots of recycling facilities at their workplace, despite the new requirements, while 20% said they could not recall seeing any.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
Arguably some respondents may have been telling pollsters what they thought was appropriate rather than what they actually believed, but there is no reason to believe that most of them were lying.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
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