handicapper
Americannoun
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Horse Racing.
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a racetrack official or employee who assigns the weight a horse must carry in a race.
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a person employed, as by a newspaper, to make predictions on the outcomes of horse races.
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a person who determines the handicaps that will be placed on competitors.
noun
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an official appointed to assign handicaps to competitors in such sports as golf and horse racing
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a newspaper columnist employed to estimate the chances that horses have of winning races
Etymology
Origin of handicapper
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.
“He made performance ratings before there were published Beyer figures. He videotaped gate workouts in the mid-1980s. His overall knowledge of pace, pedigree and European form is unsurpassed. As a public handicapper, he’s the GOAT.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2025
Harris enters election day presumed to capture 226 votes from Democratic-leaning states, according to the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2024
Murray is believed to be a single handicapper and, fuelled by his extraordinary will to win, has talked about getting down to scratch.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2024
Been given a chance by the handicapper, carrying 6lb less this time.
From BBC ● Apr. 13, 2023
During the Depression, in the midst of his doctoral studies at Harvard, he worked as a handicapper for a horse-racing syndicate and was so successful that he lived lavishly on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
