respondent
Americannoun
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respondents
plural
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a person who responds or makes reply.
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Law. a defendant, especially in appellate and divorce proceedings.
adjective
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giving a response; answering; responsive.
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Law. being a respondent.
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Psychology. of or relating to behavior that occurs consistently in response to a particular stimulus.
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Obsolete. corresponding.
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of respondent
1520–30; < Latin respondent- (stem of respondēns ), present participle of respondēre. See respond, -ent
Explanation
A respondent is a person who gives an answer. For example, on some Monday mornings, your teacher might feel like she is talking to the walls — although she asks questions, none of the sleepy students are willing respondents. A respondent is a person who answers a question, letter, email message, survey, or anything else that requires a response. You can see the word respond, which means "answer or reply to" in respondent. If a poll reveals that bullying is the top concern regarding school safety, you know that many respondents checked the box marked "bullying."
Vocabulary lists containing respondent
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:
"Indeed, our submission is that for this offending the respondent should be sentenced to life without parole," he said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
"The lunch guests had been good to the respondent and her children over many years," prosecutors said.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
Millennial and Gen Z customers, one respondent said, were spending more money on their pets than older generations.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
“The conflict in Iran has impacted pricing in every category of raw materials. Especially, items that have a heavy concentration of oil in the components like our adhesives,” one respondent to the survey said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
Both must be admitted: a respondent may admit one without being committed to the conclusion.
From Logic, Inductive and Deductive by William Minto
Around 5% of respondents believed their accent had cost them a promotion, pay rise or senior role.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
Egan doesn’t think Betterment was being punked by Gen Z respondents to their survey, who were roughly a quarter of the 1,000 questioned for its 2026 retail investor survey.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026
Both were cited by about 39 percent of respondents.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
In the survey, 12% of respondents under 30 said yes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
For example, lower-income respondents give greater weight to the importance of faith.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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.
