# fighter

Pronunciation: US say "FY-ter" /ˈfaɪtɚ/; UK say "FY-tuh" /ˈfaɪ.tə(ɹ)/

## Noun

1. A person who fights, or who takes part in combat of any kind.
   - Simple: A person who fights or takes part in a fight.
   - _The fighter who threw the first punch was arrested outside the stadium._
   - _Security guards pulled the two fighters apart before anyone was seriously hurt._
2. A fixed-wing military aircraft designed mainly to shoot down other aircraft, sometimes also used to attack targets on the ground.
   - Simple: A war plane made mainly to shoot down other planes, and sometimes to attack things on the ground.
   - _The air force scrambled two fighters to intercept the unidentified aircraft._
   - _The new fighter can also carry bombs for attacks on ground targets._
3. A person who takes part in boxing or in any of the martial arts.
   - Simple: A person who boxes or does a martial art such as judo or karate.
   - _The judges scored the bout for the younger fighter._
   - _Mixed martial arts fighters must be skilled at both striking and wrestling._
4. A warrior, or a soldier who takes part in the actual fighting.
   - Simple: A warrior, or a soldier who does the fighting in a war.
   - _Rebel fighters seized the airport early on Sunday morning._
   - _Each fighter in the militia carried a rifle and three days of food._
5. A person with strong determination to hold out against long or severe hardship, especially illness. *(literary)*
   - Simple: A person who keeps fighting hard against a long or serious problem, especially an illness.
   - _The doctors gave him weeks to live, but he was a fighter and lasted another two years._
   - _She has always been a fighter, and the long recovery after the accident was no exception._
6. A pugnacious, competitive person, ready to quarrel and eager to win.
   - Simple: A person who is quick to fight or argue and who loves to compete.
   - _In meetings she was a fighter, challenging every budget cut line by line._
   - _The team's best players were fighters who argued every call and chased every loose ball._
7. A video game centered on physical combat.
   - Simple: A video game that is mainly about characters fighting each other.
   - _The studio's latest fighter adds online ranked matches and a roster of thirty characters._
   - _Fans of classic two-dimensional fighters will feel at home with the new release._
8. In science fiction, a small combat spacecraft, also called a starfighter, that does in space what a fighter plane does in the air.
   - Simple: In science fiction stories, a small spaceship made for fighting, like a fighter plane in space.
   - _The alien carrier launched a swarm of fighters toward the planet's orbital defenses._
   - _She banked her fighter hard to dodge the laser fire from the enemy cruiser._
9. A firefighter, a person employed or trained to put out fires. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A firefighter, someone whose job is to put out fires.
   - _More than two hundred fighters spent the night cutting lines around the wildfire._
   - _A fighter from the local station carried the child out of the smoke._

## Origin

From Middle English fightere, fyghtor, feghtere, from Old English feohtere; it is equivalent to fight + -er.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/fighter (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).