candidate

Noun

candidate (plural candidates)

1. A person who seeks to be elected or appointed to a position or privilege.
   • Smith announced he was the party's candidate for the next election.
   • All candidates who miss the deadline or make a spelling mistake in their applications are automatically rejected.
2. (figuratively) A person who is thought likely or worthy to gain a position or privilege.
3. A participant in an examination.
   • Candidates must remain silent for the entirety of the exam.
4. Someone or something likely or suited to undergo or be chosen for a purpose.
   • After being presented with various suitors, she decided none of the candidates were the kind of man she was looking for.
   • In the past two years, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has located nearly 3,000 exoplanet candidates ranging from sub-Earth-sized minions to gas giants that dwarf our own Jupiter.2013 May-June, Kevin Heng, “Why Does Nature Form Exoplanets Easily?”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, archived from the original on 07 Aug 2013, page 184
5. A student taking a degree who has finished the coursework but has other remaining requirements such as a dissertation.
   • a Ph.D. candidate
6. The recipient of certain academic degrees, now mainly awarded in Scandinavia.
7. A gene which may play a role in a given disease.

Verb (1)

UK/ˈkæn.dɪ.deɪt/British/ˈkandɪdɛjt/

candidate (third-person singular simple present candidates, present participle candidating, simple past and past participle candidated)

1. (uncommon) To stand as a candidate for an office, typically for a religious one.
   • The matter of candidating for a pulpit is not a matter of difference between congregations and Rabbis, but between Rabbis themselves.1906, Year Book of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, page 196
   • Furthermore, the fact that a school principal has only been in a large school six weeks does not prevent his candidating for principal of a larger school with larger salary.1917, William Harvey Allen, Universal Training for Citizenship and Public Service, page 154
2. (nonstandard, uncommon, chiefly jargon and non-native speakers' English) To make or name (something) as a candidate (to be chosen or deemed suitable for a purpose).
   • Performance comparison of solar energy conversion candidated for SPS. (From NASA, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston 1977.)1982, Brian O'Leary, Space industrialization, CRC
   • In this program if a processor becomes idle, then all feasible activities requiring that kind of processor will be candidated for scheduling. If the number of candidates is more than the number of available processors, activities with higher priority ...1989, Institution of Electrical Engineers. Electronics Division, European Conference on Circuit Theory and Design, 5-8 September 1989, Peter Peregrinus Limited, →ISBN

Verb (2)

UK/ˈkæn.dɪ.deɪt/British/ˈkandɪdɛjt/

candidate (third-person singular simple present candidates, present participle candidating, simple past and past participle candidated)

1. (figuratively, obsolete, rare, transitive, uncommon) To make white; to whitewash.