Word.ws English Dictionary

runner-ups

runner-ups is the plural of runner-up.

Meaning of runner-up

Noun

runner-up (plural runners-up or (colloquial, nonstandard) runner-ups)

  1. The person who finishes second, or in any position after the first.
    • Remember, if the winner cannot complete the duties, the runner-up will take over.
  2. Second favourite.
    • For years, Twitter was a runner-up social media company. It never grew to the size and scale of a Facebook or an Instagram. It simply muddled along.2022 July 11, Kate Conger, Mike Isaac, “How Elon Musk Damaged Twitter and Left It Worse Off”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Questions about runner-ups

What is runner-ups the plural of?
Runner-ups is the plural of runner-up.

Words near runner-ups in the dictionary

  1. runner's high
  2. runner's knee
  3. runner's trots
  4. runner-runner
  5. runner-up
  6. runner-ups
  7. runnerless
  8. runners
  9. runners and riders
  10. runners knee
  11. runners up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: runner-ups (page history and authors); runner-up (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: “runner-ups.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/runner-ups. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.