runner-up
Americannoun
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the competitor, player, or team finishing in second place, as in a race, contest, or tournament.
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runners-up, the competitors who do not win a contest but who place ahead of the majority of the contestants and share in prizes or honors, as those who place second, third, and fourth, or in the top ten.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of runner-up
First recorded in 1835–45
Explanation
In a competition, the runner-up is usually the person who comes in second place. In the Olympics, an athlete who wins a silver medal can be called a runner-up. In beauty pageants, there are often first, second, and third-place winners, followed by a runner-up. At the state fair, if your pig gets a blue ribbon and your sister's gets a red one, it means your pig won, and your sister's pig was the runner-up. The earliest use of this word, in the 1840s, was in dog racing.
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:
A win is worth £15,000 and a runner-up spot £10,000, so Littler has some work to do.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
Liverpool have a World Cup winner and runner-up in their squad after Spain beat Argentina in the final on Sunday.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
Iron Man Cal, like the runner-up trained by Phil D’Amato, was third, with The Goat fourth and pacesetting Mirahmadi fading to last.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2026
Perhaps reuniting with Umberto Rispoli, the jockey who was aboard Journalism for the last eight of his nine straight wins or runner-up finishes, will provide a boost.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
Although she had been raised to ten dollars a week when she went on reading, her runner-up received twenty-five dollars a week and the other readers received twenty.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
The pair were runners-up to winners Amaya Espinal and Bryan Arenales.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
But when they left New Jersey as runners-up, Fernandez and the rest of La Albiceleste still had at least one ally back home.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
Croatia embraced the match in 2022 despite having gone one better in 2018 when they were runners-up to France - though Morocco head coach Walid Regragui described it as a "booby prize".
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
For the 2022 runners-up, only three of the side that played in that semi-final started Saturday's win over Paraguay.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
The reporter has already started discussing the Wardraft runners-up wild cards who will replace me and Ren.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
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.
