Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person who is present at an event without participating in it.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who stands near; a spectator; a chance looker-on; hence, one who has no concern with the business being transacted.
  • noun One of the highest order of penitents in the discipline of the early church. See consistentes.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who stands near; a spectator; one who has no concern with the business transacting.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a person who, although present at some event, does not take part in it; an observer or spectator

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a nonparticipant spectator

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

by- +‎ stander

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