RIVAL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Rival

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/rˈaɪvəl/ Listen

adjective

Rival adj. Having the same pretensions or claims; standing in competition for superiority; as, rival lovers; rival claims or pretensions. "The strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen."

noun

Rival n.

A person having a common right or privilege with another; a partner. (Obs.) "If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste."

One who is in pursuit of the same object as another; one striving to reach or obtain something which another is attempting to obtain, and which one only can posses; a competitor; as, rivals in love; rivals for a crown. Note: "Rivals, in the primary sense of the word, are those who dwell on the banks of the same stream. But since, as all experience shows, there is no such fruitful source of coutention as a water right, it would continually happen that these occupants of the opposite banks would be at strife with one another in regard of the periods during which they severally had a right to the use of the stream... And thus 'rivals'... came to be used of any who were on any grounds in more or less unfriendly competition with one another."

Synonyms: Competitor; emulator; antagonist.

verb

Rival v. t. (past & past part. rivaled or rivalled; pres. part. rivaling or rivalling)

To stand in competition with; to strive to gain some object in opposition to; as, to rival one in love.

To strive to equal or exel; to emulate. "To rival thunder in its rapid course."

Rival v. i. To be in rivalry. (Obs.)

See images of 'Rival'

Etymology of 'Rival'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Rival" Quotes from Famous Books

... Venetian dialect, and have such a rapidity of utterance that it is difficult to follow them. I only remember to have made out one of their comedies,—a play in which an ingenious lover procured his rich and successful rival to be arrested for lunacy, and married the disputed young person while the other was raging in the mad-house. This play is performed to enthusiastic audiences; but for the most part the favorite drama of the Burattini appears to be a sardonic farce, in which the chief ...

— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... came with the Cauldstaneslap party; then she lived at Cauldstaneslap. Here was Archie's secret, here was the woman, and more than that - though I have need here of every manageable attenuation of language - with the first look, he had already entered himself as rival. It was a good deal in pique, it was a little in revenge, it was much in genuine admiration: the devil may decide the proportions! I cannot, and it is very ...

— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... out with three or four sprigs of the Ailesworth bourgeoisie in her time, and the shadow of middle-age had crept upon her before she realised that however pliant her disposition, her lack of physical charm put her at the mercy of the first bright-eyed rival. At thirty-five Ellen had decided, with admirable philosophy, that marriage was not for her, and had assumed, with apparent complacency, the outward evidences of a dignified spinsterhood. She had discarded gay hats and ribbons, imitation jewellery, unreliable ...

— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... no more than fair, to be as honest as yourself in this matter. You have told me that you are a suitor for Miss Mordaunt's hand; I will now own to you that I am your rival." ...

— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... to his home, one dark and dreary day in late December, found him as usual in the best of spirits. He welcomed the visitors with a cordiality that would rival the meeting of two long lost friends. The front has no main entrance; the main door is around the back. There are conspicuous displays of many ancient burlap bags, heavy laden, hanging from high rafters, which ...

— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

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