runner-up
Americannoun
-
runners-up
plural
-
the competitor, player, or team finishing in second place, as in a race, contest, or tournament.
-
runners-up, the competitors who do not win a contest but who place ahead of the majority of the contestants and share in prizes or honors, as those who place second, third, and fourth, or in the top ten.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of runner-up
First recorded in 1835–45
Explanation
In a competition, the runner-up is usually the person who comes in second place. In the Olympics, an athlete who wins a silver medal can be called a runner-up. In beauty pageants, there are often first, second, and third-place winners, followed by a runner-up. At the state fair, if your pig gets a blue ribbon and your sister's gets a red one, it means your pig won, and your sister's pig was the runner-up. The earliest use of this word, in the 1840s, was in dog racing.
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:
Two-time major finalist Karolina Muchova, Ukraine's Elina Svitolina and 2025 US Open runner-up Amanda Anisimova were the first top-10 seeds to be eliminated when they lost in the third round.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
Or, as former US Open runner-up Taylor Fritz describes it, delusion.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
The young ’un is Trey McKinney, a wiry prodigy who broke into Elite Series fishing in his teens and has twice finished runner-up for Angler of the Year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026
The Zambian opposition leader who was runner-up in this month's disputed presidential election surrendered to police on Thursday after two weeks in hiding following a summons over an alleged national security threat, state media reported.
From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026
On the corner of Sterling and Commonwealth was the old Masonic Temple, where one Saturday afternoon thirty-five years before, Milton had been runner-up in a spelling bee.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
They were runners-up at 2022's Under-19 Euros, beaten by England in extra-time in the final, and would go on to make the semi-finals of 2023's Under-20 Euros.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Five English teams will try to stop them with Arsenal the favourites to better their runners-up slot from last year.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
The Premier League team of the year, as voted for by the players, was dominated by champions Arsenal and runners-up Man City.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
When Walter and his partners bought the Dodgers, the runners-up: the bid team of Cohen and Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
The drumbeats roll in with each announcement of the runners-up.
From "Like Vanessa" by Tami Charles
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.
