Contender
Contender noun - One who seeks an office, honor, position, or award.
Professional and contender are semantically related. In some cases you can use "Professional" instead a noun "Contender".
Nearby Words: contended, contending
Professional
Professional noun - A person engaged in one of the learned professions.
Contender and professional are semantically related. Sometimes you can use "Contender" instead a noun "Professional".
Both words in one sentence
- Later on, in the Intermission editorial "Gold Bugged: Mea Culpa", he discussed how nearly every major professional film critic, himself included, had missed this film as a potential Oscar contender.
- A journalist asked former Tennis player Rod Laver (a contender for the Greatest of All Time title) how he would go about beating current player Roger Federer (another contender), if they had been professional at the same time.
Source: Crippling the Competition - Soccer manga and anime Giant Killing is basically about this: the protagonist is a coach whose mission is to bring a bottom-feeder Japanese team (for which he played in his professional career and was an idol before moving to an English team in the same situation) up to top contender level.
Source: David vs. Goliath
Cite this Source
Professional and Contender. (2016). Retrieved 2026, August 10, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/contender/professional
Contender & Professional. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 Aug. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/contender/professional>.
Professional or Contender. 2016. Accessed August 10, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/contender/professional.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "contender" and "professional" have occurred on timeline