From Latin rīvālis, from rīvus ("small stream, brook").

• IPA: /ˈɹaɪvəl/

rival (plural rivals)

1. A competitor (person, team, company, etc.) with the same goal as another, or striving to attain the same thing. Defeating a rival may be a primary or necessary goal of a competitor.

   Chris is my biggest rival in the 400-metre race.

2. Someone or something with similar claims of quality or distinction as another.

   As a social historian, he has no rival.

3. (obsolete) One having a common right or privilege with another; a partner.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, / The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

• rivulet

• French: rival, rivale
• German: Gegner, Rivale, Konkurrent, Gegnerin, Rivalin, Konkurrentin
• Italian: rivale, competitore, antagonista, avversario
• Portuguese: rival, adversário, competidor
• Russian: сопе́рник
• Spanish: rival

• Italian: rivale, pari, avversario
• Portuguese: rival
• Russian: ра́вный

rival (not comparable)

1. Having the same pretensions or claims; standing in competition for superiority.

   rival lovers; rival claims or pretensions

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 1, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC ↗:

     The strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen.

rival (third-person singular simple present rivals, present participle rivalling or rivaling, simple past and past participle rivalled or rivaled)

1. (transitive) To oppose or compete with.

   to rival somebody in love

2. To be equal to, or match, or to surpass another.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC ↗:

     The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, […] .

3. To strive to equal or excel; to emulate.
   • 1697, Virgil, translated by John Dryden, The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC ↗:

     to rival thunder in its rapid course

• French: rivaliser
• German: rivalisieren
• Italian: rivaleggiare, competere
• Russian: сопе́рничать