Definition of "candidate" []

• A person who seeks or is nominated for an office, prize, or honor. (noun)
• A student who has nearly completed the requirements for a degree. (noun)
• One that seems likely to gain a certain position or come to a certain fate: young actors who are candidates for stardom; a memorandum that is a good candidate for the trash can. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Polling on a write-in candidate is notoriously hard to do accurately, for starters."
• "The main candidate is Jose Serra, who was the governor of Sao Paulo State, and he's a very capable administrator, and he had been very popular in this area."
• "The traditional role of the VP candidate is to attack the Presidential candidate from the other party - the Prez candidate himself can be quiet to keep his hands clean, but the case needs to be made."