sponsor

Pluralsponsors

Formssponsors, sponsoring, sponsored

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A person or organization that funds all or part of an event, publication, broadcast program, or similar undertaking, usually in return for advertising.

   Each sponsor received logo placement on the stadium's giant screens.

   Several sponsors withdrew their funding after the broadcast controversy.

   Similarpatron, underwriter

   Note

   Broadcasting made this the most familiar sense, and its signature line is the formula "And now a word from our sponsor," which hands airtime to the advertiser. Patron and underwriter overlap with it. Sponsor, however, carries the expectation of something in return, such as a logo, a credit or a mention. Patron suggests support with less of a bargain attached.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To act as a sponsor for a person, organization, event, or program.

   The corporation chose to sponsor the documentary in exchange for on-screen credits.

   Local businesses sponsor the annual marathon every spring.

   Similarfund, finance, back, underwrite, support

   Note

   The verb is transitive and regular (sponsors, sponsoring, sponsored), and it covers every kind of sponsoring, from vouching for an applicant to funding a broadcast. It also stretches figuratively. When David Simpson writes in The Guardian Weekly (2013) that ballooning "has sponsored heroes and hucksters," the subject is an activity, and the meaning shades into fostered or given rise to.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A person or organization that takes on responsibility for another, especially when that responsibility is religious, legal, or financial in nature.

   The church requires each child to have a sponsor present at the ceremony.

   As legal sponsor, he was responsible for the immigrant family's expenses.

   Similarguarantor, godparent

   Note

   Latin supplied both strands of this meaning. Spōnsor meant "a surety," someone who answers for another's debt or promise, and Late Latin added "a sponsor in baptism." Those two roots still show in the legal and financial side (the sponsor on an immigration application) and the religious side (the sponsor at a christening). In both, the sponsor is the one whose word is on the line, and the person sponsored is the one vouched for.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   An experienced member of a twelve-step or similar program chosen to guide a newcomer and form a supportive partnership with them.

   A good sponsor listens without judgment and shares their own experience.

   She met her sponsor for coffee to work through the next step.

   Similarmentor

   Note

   Recovery fellowships narrowed the guarantor meaning to one personal relationship: an experienced member who walks a newcomer through the program. Members choose their sponsor, and the bond is close. Roy Baumeister and John Tierney's Willpower (2011) describes regular, even daily, contact. The word usually appears with a possessive and often with the fellowship named, as in my Narcotics Anonymous sponsor.

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