Word.ws English Dictionary

candidates

candidates is the plural of candidate.

Meaning of 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.
  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.
  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.

See all 10 meanings of candidate

Phrases with candidates

Questions about candidates

What is candidates the plural of?
Candidates is the plural of candidate.

Words near candidates in the dictionary

  1. candidastatic
  2. candidate
  3. candidate key
  4. candidate keys
  5. candidated
  6. candidates
  7. candidateship
  8. candidateships
  9. candidating
  10. candidature
  11. candidatures

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: candidates (page history and authors); candidate (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-candidates.wav.

Cite this entry: “candidates.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/candidates. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.