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

That’s what accounts for almost all of the $28.5 trillion “total addressable market” the company claims for its services, never mind that it’s a distant also-ran in the AI business.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2026

Seeded as an also-ran at No. 23, she upset Coco Gauff and Karolina Muchova before falling in a tight three-set match to Amanda Anisimova.

From Los Angeles Times ● 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

Intel has gone from a chip also-ran to a legitimate player in the AI computing boom.

From Barron's ● May 1, 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