runner-up

American  

[ruhn-er-uhp] / ˈrʌn ərˈʌp /

noun

plural

runners-up

1. the competitor, player, or team finishing in second place, as in a race, contest, or tournament.

2. 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.

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runner-up British  

noun

1. a contestant finishing a race or competition in second place

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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

That is because the former British number one finished runner-up in Madrid last year and was supposed to be defending 650 ranking points.

From BBC • Apr. 29, 2026

England's Selby, 42, has lost in round one at the Crucible in each of the past two years, but stormed into a 6-0 lead over the 2024 runner-up, helped by breaks of 67 and 50.

From BBC • Apr. 22, 2026

Rosenqvist. who won the pole position with a lap time of 1 minute 7.4625 seconds in qualifying, had mixed emotions as the runner-up after leading for 51 laps with no win to show for it.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 19, 2026

He then moved on to the FIA Formula 3 Championship, where he finished 11th in 2022, his rookie season, and was runner-up in 2023.

From BBC • Apr. 17, 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

Related Words

• double