Word.ws English Dictionary

non-starter

non-starter noun: someone or something who was listed to start in a race, but did not start in the race.

Noun

non-starter (plural non-starters)

  1. Someone or something who was listed to start in a race, but did not start in the race.
  2. Something that is destined to fail from the outset; an impractical scheme.
    • Whatever is decided, it is clear that Crossrail 2 must be regarded as a non-starter for the foreseeable future.2020 December 2, Industry Insider, “The costs of cutting carbon”, in Rail, page 76
  3. (idiomatic) An idea or argument that cannot be sensibly debated.

Forms of non-starter

pluralnon-starters

Origin of non-starter

From non- + starter.

Questions about non-starter

What does non-starter mean?
Non-starter means someone or something who was listed to start in a race, but did not start in the race.
What part of speech is non-starter?
Non-starter is a noun.
What is the plural of non-starter?
The plural of non-starter is non-starters.

Words near non-starter in the dictionary

  1. non-standard
  2. non-standard varieties
  3. non-standard variety
  4. non-starchy
  5. non-stardom
  6. non-starter
  7. non-starters
  8. non-state
  9. non-state actor
  10. non-state actors
  11. non-states

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: non-starter (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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Cite this entry: “non-starter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/non-starter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.