Candidate

How to spell candidate

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce candidate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does candidate mean?

1. nounA person who applies or stands for a job, election, award, or examination.

Candidate in a sentence

• The strongest candidate for the manager role had ten years of experience.

• Every candidate in the local election attended the public debate.

Where does candidate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin candidatus, which literally meant 'clothed in white'. It was built on candidus, meaning 'white' or 'bright', from the verb candere, 'to shine' or 'to glow'. The connection to elections is wonderfully concrete: in ancient Rome a man seeking public office would walk the forum in a specially whitened toga, signalling his purity and ambition, so he became known as a candidatus. English took the word in the early 1600s with its modern political and competitive sense already attached. The same shining root candere also gives us 'candle' and 'incandescent', and remembering that bright Roman toga helps fix the often-dropped second 'd' in candi-date.

How the word is built

• candid- (from Latin candidus: white, shining)
• -ate (noun suffix)