spectator
Americannoun
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spectators
plural
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a person who looks on or watches; onlooker; observer.
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a person who is present at and views a spectacle, display, or the like; member of an audience.
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Also called spectator shoe. a white shoe with a perforated wing tip and back trim, traditionally of dark brown, dark blue, or black but sometimes of a lighter color.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of spectator
1580–90; < Latin spectātor, equivalent to spectā ( re ), frequentative of specere to look, regard + -tor -tor
Explanation
If you're watching something, you're a spectator. Football stadiums and circus tents are full of spectators. The spectator is a particular kind of viewer; unlike a witness or an onlooker, they usually have chosen intentionally to regard the spectacle before them. Usually the word spectator refers to people watching games or "spectator sports," but you could be a spectator at any planned event. An easy way to remember this word is to think of spectacles, glasses used to view something clearly — both from the same Latin root spectare.
Vocabulary lists containing spectator
Vocabulary of the Summer Olympics
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Maniac Magee
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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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:
Medvedev swiped it into the stands, where it hit a spectator in the face.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
"Terribly sorry to the spectator, first of all," Medvedev said.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
During Sackets Harbor’s marathon on Sept. 6, a spectator had drawn “Lake America” in chalk in front of the lake, among doodles cheering on the runners.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
But occasionally, snobs don’t have a choice, such as when they’re sitting in the dark of a movie theater, where the viewer assumes the role of the spectator.
From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2026
After Woolf dismounted, Azucar butted him out of the way, ran over a spectator, slashed the NBC Radio wire—cutting off the national broadcast—and dragged his terrified groom down the track like a toboggan.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
Without us, there is no one to hoist blame upon when the film reveals its layers, no one to compare to the film’s wide-eyed spectators of global collapse.
From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2026
She said bad weather had turned some spectators off, but was eager to point out that some sports were well attended.
From Barron's ● Oct. 4, 2026
The musicians were smiling, the spectators tapped and clapped, and that magical sense of timelessness was real, spanning multiple generations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
The Mohammad Al-Hamad Stadium holds 22,000 spectators, more than five times that of Salisbury's The Ray Mac.
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026
Between one hundred thousand and three hundred thousand spectators lined the streets to watch.
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
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.
