Compete
verbTo strive against others to win something or to gain an advantage.
How to spell compete
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce compete
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does compete mean?
- verbTo strive against others to win something or to gain an advantage.
Compete in a sentence
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Small shops struggle to compete with the big online retailers on price.
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Hundreds of applicants will compete for the same graduate position.
Where does compete come from?
Language of origin: Latin
Compete comes from the Latin verb competere, which combined com- meaning 'together' with petere meaning 'to seek, aim at, or strive after'. In its earliest Latin use it actually meant 'to coincide' or 'to be fit or suitable', the sense of two things coming together at one point. By late Latin it had taken on the idea of rivals striving toward the same goal, and English borrowed it around the early 1600s with that competitive meaning. The same petere root, the literal act of striving after something, also lies behind 'petition', 'appetite', and 'impetus'. Knowing that the ending is the Latin -pete (to seek) rather than an English '-eat' helps fix the spelling, since the word is sometimes wrongly written with an extra letter.
How the word is built
- com- (together)
- pete (from Latin petere: to seek, strive)
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