Word.ws English Dictionary

rivalrous

Syllables: ri·val·rous/ˈɹaɪv(ə)lɹəs/US/ˈɹaɪvəlɹəs/

rivalrous adjective: having a relationship of rivalry.

Adjective

rivalrous (comparative more rivalrous, superlative most rivalrous)

  1. Having a relationship of rivalry.
    • In “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” Mr. Lumet’s 45th film, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play rivalrous brothers whose bungled robbery of their parents’ modest jewelry store in Westchester County begins a cycle of quasi-Greek family tragedy without a catharsis.2007 October 12, Stephen Holden, “At New York Film Festival: Upheaval in Iran, fiasco in Westchester”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 05 Jun 2015
    • Western universalism was real, if rivalrous.2015 September 12, Steven Erlanger, “Are Western values losing their sway? [print version: Did liberalism win? It's not clear, International New York Times, 14 September 2015, p. 7]”, in The New York...
  2. Which can be consumed by no more than one person at the same time.
    • Rivalrous goods are those which can be consumed by only one person at the same time – for example, a candy bar or a suit; […]20th–21st century, Thomas A. McGahagan, “Public Goods”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, archived from the original...

Forms of rivalrous

comparativemore rivalrous
superlativemost rivalrous

Origin of rivalrous

From rivalry + -ous.

Words formed from rivalrous

Questions about rivalrous

What does rivalrous mean?
Rivalrous means having a relationship of rivalry.
What part of speech is rivalrous?
Rivalrous is an adjective.
How do you pronounce rivalrous?
Rivalrous is pronounced /ˈɹaɪv(ə)lɹəs/ (UK).

Words near rivalrous in the dictionary

  1. rivalled
  2. rivalless
  3. rivalling
  4. rivalmance
  5. rivalries
  6. rivalrous
  7. rivalrously
  8. rivalrousness
  9. rivalry
  10. rivals
  11. rivalship

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rivalrous (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)-Vealhurl-rivalrous.wav.

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