Definitions

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

  • noun One who attempts to equal or surpass another, or who pursues the same object as another; a competitor.
  • noun One that equals or almost equals another in a particular respect.
  • noun Obsolete A companion or an associate in a particular duty.
  • intransitive verb To attempt to equal or surpass.
  • intransitive verb To be the equal of; match.
  • intransitive verb To be a competitor or rival; compete.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To stand in competition with; seek to gain something in opposition to: as, to rival one in love.
  • To strive to equal or excel; emulate.
  • To be a competitor; act as a rival.
  • noun One having a common right or privilege with another; an associate; an alternating partner or companion in duty.
  • noun One who is in pursuit of the same object as another; one who strives to reach or obtain something which another is attempting to obtain, and which only one can possess; a competitor: as, rivals in love; rivals for a crown.
  • noun One who emulates or strives to equal or exceed another in excellence; a competitor; an antagonist: as, two rivals in eloquence.
  • noun Synonyms and See emulation.
  • Having the same pretensions or claims; standing in competition for superiority: as, rival lovers; rival claims or pretensions.

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

  • noun obsolete A person having a common right or privilege with another; a partner.
  • noun 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
  • adjective Having the same pretensions or claims; standing in competition for superiority
  • transitive verb To stand in competition with; to strive to gain some object in opposition to.
  • transitive verb To strive to equal or exel; to emulate.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To be in rivalry.

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

  • noun A competitor (person, team, company, etc.) who is well known to another and has similar skills and achievements. Defeating a rival may be a primary or necessary goal of a competitor.
  • noun Someone or something with similar claims of quality or distinction as another.
  • verb transitive To oppose or compete with.
  • verb To equal to or surpass another.

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

  • verb be the rival of, be in competition with
  • noun the contestant you hope to defeat
  • verb be equal to in quality or ability

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin rīvālis, one using the same stream as another, a rival, from rīvus, stream; see rei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin rīvālis, literally ‘person using the same stream as another’, from rīvus ("small stream, brook").

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Examples

  • Water wars have been with us for all of human history -- the word "rival" comes from a Latin word meaning "one who uses the same stream as another."

    Boing Boing 2008

  • The French Citroën driver Loeb, who has an eight-point advantage over the Finnish Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen going into this final race of the season, leads his title rival by only 0.7 seconds.

    Sébastien Loeb holds narrow lead after first day of Wales Rally GB 2011

  • Hosting the event will be Björn Türoque, one of the stars of the documentary, C-Diddy's main rival from the States, and he's here in Edinburgh.

    Filmstalker: EIFF presents Air Guitar night 2006

  • Respect, which he feels was sorely lacking from his title rival on the race track, seems to be earned after Toronto.

    NEWS.com.au | Top Stories 2011

  • The win was Sam's fourth of the season, and with his title rival James Westmoreland finishing second in the race, he needs only a fifth-place finish in the final two rounds to clinch the championship.

    BBC Lincolnshire | Lincolnshire 2010

  • The win was Sam's fourth of the season, and with his title rival James Westmoreland finishing second in the race, he needs only a fifth-place finish in the final two rounds to clinch the championship.

    BBC Lincolnshire | Lincolnshire 2010

  • He did briefly get past Neal for 5th but his title rival would quickly get back past him on the same lap, and then Plato slipped further back by first losing a place to his Silverline Chevrolet team mate Alex

    Motorsport.com: news 2010

  • Red Bull driver's lap of 1min 37.942sec at the new Korean International Circuit was almost two-tenths of a second quicker than that of his title rival Fernando Alonso of Ferrari, with another championship contender, Lewis Hamilton of McLaren, third fastest.

    The Guardian World News 2010

  • Continuing to set the pace in the dying stages of the session, his fastest lap, a 1m05. 347s looked good until his title rival, Vernay, dropped a 1m05. 298s leaving James with no time to respond.

    PaddockTalk Racing News 2010

  • Meanwhile, his title rival Paul Hanagan scored easily on Wootton Bassett yesterday and is now 13 clear in the jockeys 'championship.

    Sport news, comment and results | guardian.co.uk 2010

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