also-ran

American  

[awl-soh-ran] / ˈɔl soʊˌræn /

noun

1. Sports.

   1. (in a race) a contestant who fails to win or to place among the first three finishers.

   2. an athlete or team whose performance in competition is rarely, if ever, a winning or near-winning one.

2. Informal. a person who loses a contest, election, or other competition.

3. Informal. a person who attains little or no success.

   For every great artist there are a thousand also-rans.

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also-ran British  

noun

1. a contestant, horse, etc, failing to finish among the first three in a race

2. an unsuccessful person; loser or nonentity

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also-ran Idioms  

1. Loser, failure, unsuccessful individual, as in Jane feared that her candidate, a terrible speaker, would end up as an also-ran, or As for getting promotions, Mark counted himself among the also-rans. This term comes from racing, where it describes a horse that finishes in fourth place or lower or does not finish a race at all. It first appeared in the 1890s in published racing results, and has since been transferred to losers in any kind of competition, and also more broadly to persons who simply don't do well.

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Etymology

Origin of also-ran

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

also-ran

But Ms. Andrews seems a savvier politician than the also-ran of four years ago.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026

“CBS Mornings” has long been the ratings also-ran in the mornings behind NBC’s “Today” and ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026

The company was once an also-ran in the AI race, chasing what appeared to be a near-insurmountable OpenAI lead after the company released ChatGPT in late 2022 and began accumulating hundreds of millions of users.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026

Even classical music listeners have their version in what may be the most legendary rivalry of all — the one that also-ran Italian composer Antonio Salieri supposedly nursed with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

From Salon ● May 16, 2026

With Rosemont in the race, no one had any reason to believe that the horse Tom Smith was leading down the platform would be anything more than an also-ran.

From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand

Related Words

• loser