commentator
Americannoun
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commentators
plural
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a person who discusses news, sports events, weather, or the like, as on television or radio.
-
a person who makes commentaries.
noun
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a person who provides a spoken commentary for a broadcast, film, etc, esp of a sporting event
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a person who writes notes on a text, event, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of commentator
1350–1400; Middle English < Late Latin commentātor interpreter, equivalent to commentā ( rī ) to interpret ( Latin: to think about, prepare, discuss, write, perhaps frequentative of comminīscī to devise; see comment) + Latin -tor -tor
Explanation
A person who analyzes and discusses topics in politics and sports is called a commentator. If you want to hear opinions on the news rather than the news itself, listen to commentators. A reporter delivers the news and a commentator analyzes it, sometimes within the same news program. If you're a top sports commentator, you may become an even bigger household name than the players you are discussing, and you may pull in just as much money too. Political commentators, who often offer more opinion rather than analysis, are also sometimes called pundits or talking heads.
Vocabulary lists containing commentator
myPerspectives 10.2
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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:
Jeff Currie, a well-established commentator on commodity markets and a senior advisor at the Carlyle Group, warned investors about refined products a few weeks ago.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 2, 2026
Right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos has been deported to his home country of Britain, the US government said Saturday.
From Barron's ● Aug. 29, 2026
Central bankers and investors will be looking for more clues about the direction of interest rates, so we checked in with Greg Ip, The Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator, for his take.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
The British-born conservative strategist and political commentator raises chickens at his Silicon Valley home and has said he named one of them “Xavier.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
The voice of the commentator ran with the movement of the film: Here are the daughters of the rich taking sunbaths in the sands of Florida!
From "Native Son" by Richard Wright
Meanwhile Farage's personal popularity already seems to be slightly on the slide and before news of the investigation broke, I spoke to commentators about the party's prospects.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
Klein also points out that despite the uptick in bond yields that many commentators attribute to unsustainable fiscal deficits has caused “so far zero evidence of any looming slowdown in U.S. economic data.”
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 1, 2026
Simon Reynolds was one of the first commentators to notice, and pathologized the backwards-looking, stalled-out culture as “retromania” in 2010.
From Salon ● Aug. 29, 2026
Kyla Scanlon and other financial commentators have warned about Gen Z’s tendency toward financial nihilism — the idea that widespread economic pessimism is pushing more young people to take extreme risks with their money.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026
A foedus is a league, or compact, but it is often used as synonymous with lex, and Renaissance commentators on Lucretius interpreted him as talking about the laws of nature.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
