CANDIDATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does candidate mean? 

• CANDIDATE (noun)
  The noun CANDIDATE has 2 senses:

1. a politician who is running for public office

2. someone who is considered for something (for an office or prize or honor etc.)

  Familiarity information: CANDIDATE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CANDIDATE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A politician who is running for public office

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

campaigner; candidate; nominee

Hypernyms ("candidate" is a kind of...):

pol; political leader; politician; politico (a person active in party politics)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "candidate"):

dark horse (a political candidate who is not well known but could win unexpectedly)

favorite son (a United States politician favored mainly in his or her home state)

running mate (a nominee for the lesser of two closely related political offices)

spoiler (a candidate with no chance of winning but who may draw enough votes to prevent one of the leading candidates from winning)

stalking-horse (a candidate put forward to divide the Opposition or to mask the true candidate)

write-in; write-in candidate (a candidate for public office whose name does not appear on the ballot and so must be written on the ballot by the voters)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Someone who is considered for something (for an office or prize or honor etc.)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

candidate; prospect

Hypernyms ("candidate" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

 Context examples 

The authors suggested that AIM1 is a good candidate for the putative suppressor of malignant melanoma on chromosome 6 (Trent et al., 1990), possibly exerting its effects through interactions with the cytoskeleton.

(Absent in Melanoma 1, NCI Thesaurus/from OMIM)

"This is the first detection of an intermediate-mass black hole candidate in the Milky Way galaxy," said the study's leader, Tomoharu Oka from Keio University, Japan.

(Astronomers Find New Evidence for Long-theorized Mid-sized Black Holes, VOA News)

Scientists hope such vaccine candidates will induce broader and more durable protection against influenza than current vaccines.

(New study reveals a novel indicator of influenza immunity, National Institutes of Health)

This allele, which encodes membrane-associated transporter protein, plays a role in melanocyte differentiation and is a candidate tumor suppressor gene.

(AIM1 wt Allele, NCI Thesaurus)

The invariable defects in myocardium and AV cushion resulting from congenital deletion of ALK3 provide strong support for its assessment as a candidate gene in human congenital heart disease.

(ALK Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)

In having small size (8-15 kDa) relative to antibodies (150 kDa), aptamers are candidates for rapid tumor penetration and blood clearance.

(Aptamer, NCI Thesaurus)

This MoAb targets cells expressing aberrant EGFR, hence making it an ideal candidate for generation of radioisotope or toxin conjugates.

(Anti-EGFR Monoclonal Antibody ABT-806, NCI Thesaurus)

Animal Pharmacology Shared Resource provides support and expertise to Cancer Center investigators in evaluation of the pharmacological effects of drug candidates in clinically relevant animal models.

(Animal Pharmacology Shared Resource, NCI Thesaurus)

The researchers suggest that these broadly neutralizing antibodies could provide the basis for a candidate treatment, but further exploration is needed.

(Antibodies from Ebola survivor protect mice and ferrets against related viruses, NIH)

Out of 197 initial planet candidates, scientists have confirmed 104 planets outside our solar system.

(Kepler Confirms 100+ Exoplanets During Its K2 Mission, NASA)