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:
Boeing was awarded a contract to maintain and upgrade its F-15 fighter jets.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
An artful fighter is somebody who has deep group intelligence.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
The plant in Garden Grove manufactures the canopy for the F-35 fighter jet.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026
With a bald eagle, fighter jets, Air Force One, the Beast and race cars roaring through the nation’s capital, Trump certainly didn’t send the celebration out quietly.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026
She wanted to be a fighter pilot, and she was worried that she wasn’t going to be able to live up to the responsibility.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
For a long stretch, it’s like watching two heavyweight fighters circle each other round after round without throwing a punch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
In consultation with NATO, two F-16 jet fighters shot down the naval drone, which was spotted east of the Romanian Black Sea city of Constanta near a gas platform with active workers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
Turkey's interests in Syria historically revolved around preventing a spillover of Kurdish fighters.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
Another Italian and two Turkish jet fighters were scrambled in response to the incursion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
If Joey is successful, the American and Filipino fighters will be able to liberate the prisoners at Santo Tomas.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
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.
