athletic
/æθˈlɛt.ɪk/
athletic adjective: having to do with athletes.
Adjective
athletic (comparative more athletic, superlative most athletic)
- Having to do with athletes.
- Are you a member of the American Athletic Association?
- Physically active.
- Since you're such an athletic person, you may wish to consider joining.
- An athletic kid from New Jersey, Fischer was known as a bold risk taker — they called him “the fallingest man in climbing” — until an old-school cragger taught him the Zen of controlled ascent.2008 March 2, Bruce Barcott, “The Higher They Climb”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 02 Jan 2018
- Having a muscular, well developed body, being in shape.
- You have such an athletic build—you must work out regularly.
- An attribute of a motion or play which requires fine physical ability.
- The center fielder made an athletic play to snatch the ball from over the fence.
- Of a level in a Super Mario game: with an emphasis on platforming challenge, often involving precise jumps between floating platforms above a bottomless pit, and having upbeat background music.
- An athletic course in which Mario must traverse rotating lifts and stretch blocks.2018, Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia, Milwaukie: Dark Horse, →OCLC, page 65
- Mario levels are usually indicated to belong to one of five types (overworld, underground, athletic, castle, underwater)². The type determines the aesthetic style of the level, but also affects the challenges that are posed. For example, athletic levels usually contain platforms that are spaced far...2019, S. M. Lucas, V. Volz, “Tile pattern KL-divergence for analysing and evolving game levels”, in Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, page 171
Noun (1)
athletic (plural athletics)
- A muscular, large–boned person, in the typology of Ernst Kretschmer.
Noun (2) capitalized: Athletic
Athletic (plural Athletics)
- A player on the team Oakland Athletics.
- Smith became an Athletic as a result of a pre-season trade.
- Short for Athletic Club, a Spanish professional club more often known in English as Athletic Bilbao.
Examples of athletic in a sentence
- I’m more academic than athletic — I get lower marks in phys. ed. than in anything else.
- There were jeans, purses, athletic shoes, electronics, and a myriad of other items.
- Locrian oral tradition also seems to have attacked the broader celebration of Crotoniate athletic success.
Forms of athletic
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more athletic |
| superlative | most athletic |
| alternative form (obsolete) | athletick |
| Noun | |
| plural | athletics |
| plural | Athletics |
Origin of athletic
Borrowed from Middle French athletique and Latin āthlēticus, from Ancient Greek ἀθλητικός (athlētikós, “relating to an athlete”), from ἀθλητής (athlētḗs, “athlete”): equivalent to athlete + -ic. For more, see athlete. The Super Mario sense is effectively a reborrowing of Japanese アスレチック (asurechikku, “obstacle course”), originally borrowed from English athletic; this sense was itself originally a clipping of the genericized wasei eigo trademark フィールドアスレチック (fīrudo asurechikku, “Field Athletic”).
Words formed from athletic
Phrases with athletic
Words that rhyme with athletic
- sympathetic
- hermetic
- kinetic
- genetic
- magnetic
- energetic
- pathetic
- syndetic
- aesthetic
- diabetic
- diaeretic
- frenetic
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- mimetic
- peripatetic
- planetic
- poetic
- tonetic
- abietic
- anesthetic
- anoetic
- anuretic
- apathetic
- ascetic
- auxetic
- cybernetic
- dietetic
- epithetic
- Helvetic
- parasympathetic
- parenthetic
- phyletic
- Sidetic
- splenetic
- synaeretic
- synizetic
- tabetic
- threnetic
- alexipyretic
- algetic
- alphabetic
- alphametic
- amuletic
- analgetic
- anchoretic
- anoretic
- aphetic
- aporetic
- archegetic
- asyndetic
- auletic
- autonoetic
- balletic
- Baphometic
- cardioparasympathetic
- cardiosympathetic
- cometic
- conspiracy-theoretic
- cynegetic
- diagenetic
- diakinetic
Questions about athletic
- What does athletic mean?
- Athletic means having to do with athletes.
- What part of speech is athletic?
- Athletic can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce athletic?
- Athletic is pronounced /æθˈlɛt.ɪk/ (UK).
Words near athletic in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: athletic (page history and authors); Athletic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-athletic.wav.
Cite this entry: “athletic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/athletic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.