Cheerleader

How to spell cheerleader

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce cheerleader

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cheerleader mean?

1. nounA person, often part of a squad, who leads organised cheering and routines to support a sports team.
2. nounA person who openly and energetically promotes a cause, project, or person.

Cheerleader in a sentence

• The cheerleader practised her routine before the football game.

• The manager became the chief cheerleader for the new sales strategy.

• Each cheerleader wore the school colours and carried pom-poms.

• Every startup needs a cheerleader who keeps the team motivated through setbacks.

Where does cheerleader come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound built from two older English words, 'cheer' and 'lead', joined by the agent suffix '-er' meaning 'one who does'. 'Cheer' arrived through Old French 'chiere', meaning 'the face' or 'expression', which came in turn from the Late Latin 'cara' for 'face'; over time it shifted from describing someone's countenance to describing their mood, and finally to the shout of encouragement we mean today. 'Lead' is a native Germanic word from Old English 'l\u00e6dan', meaning 'to guide or show the way'. The two were welded together in the United States in the late nineteenth century to name the people who organised and led crowd chants at college sporting events. The figurative sense, an enthusiastic public supporter of any cause, grew naturally from that image and is now common in business and politics.

How the word is built

• cheer (shout of encouragement)
• lead (to guide)
• -er (one who does)