TOURNAMENT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does tournament mean? 

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

1. a sporting competition in which contestants play a series of games to decide the winner

2. a series of jousts between knights contesting for a prize

  Familiarity information: TOURNAMENT used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TOURNAMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A sporting competition in which contestants play a series of games to decide the winner

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

tournament; tourney

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

competition; contest (an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants)

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

World Cup (a soccer tournament held every four years between national soccer teams to determine a world champion)

elimination tournament (a tournament in which losers are eliminated in successive rounds)

open (a tournament in which both professionals and amateurs may play)

round robin (a tournament in which every contestant plays every other contestant)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A series of jousts between knights contesting for a prize

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

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

competition; contest (an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants)

Meronyms (parts of "tournament"):

joust; tilt (a combat between two mounted knights tilting against each other with blunted lances)

 Context examples 

Mr. Bhaer soon joined her, looking rather out of his element, and presently several of the philosophers, each mounted on his hobby, came ambling up to hold an intellectual tournament in the recess.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

That gentleman having willingly given his consent, the final formalities which led up to these humble tournaments were concluded.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So used were the good burghers of Bordeaux to martial display and knightly sport, that an ordinary joust or tournament was an everyday matter with them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

With a soldierly salute, he wheeled round his horse, and, galloping down the lists, disappeared amid the dense crowd of footmen and of horsemen who were streaming away from the scene of the tournament.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"Jordan's going to play in the tournament tomorrow," explained Daisy, "over at Westchester."

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

By the next year I had a few beaux myself, and I began to play in tournaments, so I didn't see Daisy very often.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers—a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)