fighter
Americannoun
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fighters
plural
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a boxer; pugilist.
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Military. an aircraft designed to seek out and destroy enemy aircraft in the air and to protect bomber aircraft.
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a person who fights, struggles, resists, etc.
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a person with the will, courage, determination, ability, or disposition to fight, struggle, resist, etc.
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an animal, as a dog, trained to fight or having the disposition to fight.
noun
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a person who fights, esp a professional boxer
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a person who has determination
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military an armed aircraft designed for destroying other aircraft
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of fighter
before 1000; Middle English; Old English fēohtere. See fight, -er 1
Explanation
Someone who battles or brawls with other people is a fighter. Some fighters, like boxers, do it professionally, while others just have a tendency to fight. If you have a habit of getting into scuffles or fistfights, you're a fighter, and when you watch a boxing match, you might pick one of the two fighters to root for. An animal might also be described as a fighter: lions are natural fighters, and a fish struggling hard on the end of a hook is a fighter. Other fighters work heroically for a belief or ideal: "She was a fighter in the struggle for civil rights."
Vocabulary lists containing fighter
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:
The Navy selected Boeing for a contract worth more than $20 billion to build its next-generation F/A-XX jet fighter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
“If something is not in Iraq’s interest, we don’t want them,” said Rahman Hussein Ahmed, a 51-year-old former fighter in a rebel group that opposed both Iran and the U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
On Wednesday Poland also said a Russian military helicopter briefly violated its airspace, forcing it to scramble fighter jets.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
The jet involved was Hawk T2 - a two-seat training jet by BAe Systems used for advanced jet training, and designed with similar controls to the Typhoon fighter jet.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
But when they turned for home, Irina saw a flash in the sky ahead of them and realized that it was a German night fighter aircraft.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
Marines will remain to protect American diplomatic missions, along with contractors to maintain Iraq’s fleet of F-16 jet fighters and American-made tanks, according to current and former U.S. officials.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
At the war’s end, the British granted these fighters and their families land in Trinidad and Tobago as part of their freedom.
From Salon ● Sep. 29, 2026
When its fighters seized control during the recent civil war, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tigrayan people fled and are now living in homeless camps in Tigray and in the capital, Addis Ababa.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026
Both fighters had much to gain during their return to the Octagon.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2026
People found it hard to take commands from someone who seemed inexperienced at flying the Yak fighters.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
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.
