champion
Pluralchampions
Verbchampions, championing, championed
Pluralchampions
Formschampions, championing, championed
- 1A person, team, or animal that has won a contest or competition, especially one holding the top title in a sport or game.
The reigning champion will defend the title next month.
Spectators cheered as the champion crossed the finish line first.
UsageOften in set phrases: the reigning champion, the defending champion, a four-time champion.
Similarwinner, titleholder, victor
- 2To publicly promote, support, and fight for a cause, person, or idea.
The senator championed the housing bill throughout her term.
Community groups champion the protection of local wetlands.
UsageYou champion a cause or a person directly, with no preposition. It suggests strong, public support.
Similarsupport, promote, advocate, back, defend
Oppositeoppose
- 3Describing a person, team or animal that has won the top title by beating all rivals, used before a noun.
The champion racehorse returned to the track after a long rest.
Their champion debate team has lost no contest in three years.
UsageContext decides: a champion boxer has won a title, but a champion effort is simply excellent.
Similarwinning, prizewinning
- 4A person who fights or argues for a cause or a particular position.
She is widely seen as a champion of human rights.
The activist became a leading champion for environmental reform.
UsageUsually a champion of a cause: a champion of human rights. A champion for is also common.
Similardefender
Note
Here the fighting is for an idea rather than a prize: a champion of women's suffrage, of human rights. Organizations have also turned it into a job title, such as a Digital Champion appointed to push a policy forward. In that use it names an advocate with a brief, not a crusader.
- 5A person who fights or competes on behalf of another person or of a group, especially in single combat.
The clans each named a champion to settle the dispute by combat.
She was chosen as her guild's champion for the tournament.
Less common meanings
- 6Outstanding; surpassing all others; beyond compare.
The team produced a champion effort in the final quarter.
Uncle Ray was a champion worrier who could find something to fret about in even the sunniest weather forecast.
UsageOften playful, before a noun for something a person does a lot: a champion talker, a champion napper.
Similaroutstanding, exceptional
- 7Very good indeed: first-rate and well worth praising.
The weather's been champion all week up north.
Your Sunday dinner was champion, thank you.
UsageComes after a verb: it was champion. A warm word for everyday speech, out of place in formal writing.
Similargrand, excellent, great, splendid, superb
Note
A dialect word of approval from Britain, best known in the North of England, and from Ireland: that rollercoaster was champion. It stands after a verb, as in it was champion, never before a noun, which sets it apart from the "outstanding" meaning. It is a warm word for everyday speech and sounds out of place in formal writing.
- 8To challenge or defy a person, as to single combat or a formal contest.
Note
An obsolete use that pointed the opposite way from today's verb: to champion someone was to challenge them, calling out a rival rather than defending an ally. It has been wholly displaced by the modern 'support' meaning. A reader meeting it in old texts should not mistake hostility for advocacy, and a writer should not try to revive it.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Champion formerly meant to challenge someone, and this sense is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
- 9An exceptionally notable specimen of a plant species, such as one of unusually great size.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of champion apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
Frankish *kampijō ("fighter") gave Medieval Latin campio ("combatant in a duel, champion"), and that word reached English through Old French champion and Middle English champioun. Further back it traces through Proto-West Germanic words for a combat soldier and for battle, built on *kamp ("battlefield"), which West Germanic had borrowed from Latin campus ("a field, a plain, a place of action").