People and roles
Synonyms for rival
Synonyms for rival: competitor and competition. Every one of them is a hand audited pair from the Synonym Stack word bank, shown below in the sense it fits, in a real sentence, and beside the words that only look close.
The 2 synonyms for rival
Interchangeable with rival in this sense
Audited under rival's own entry, so the meaning quoted is the one rival carries in that sense.
- competitornoun, in the sense "a person who competes with another for the same goal"
Recorded from the other side of the pair
These entries were written under the other word and name rival as the true synonym, so the sense quoted is theirs.
- competitioncompetition is a noun in the sense "the contestant you hope to defeat"
Two directions, one standard: one audited under rival and one under the partner word. Nothing here was expanded out of a thesaurus.
a person who competes with another for the same goal
Every runner eyed her closest rival before the race began.
The true synonym
competitor
Same sentence, swapped: Every runner eyed her closest competitor before the race began.
Close but different
The game shows these three beside the answer. Each is a real word with a real meaning and none of them fits the slot rival is in above, which is the point the reason line makes.
- teammate
- referee
- mentor
Where rival turns up in the game
rival is the word under test in one puzzle, at Tier 1, Foothills. It also sits on the board as one of the three wrong tiles in four other puzzles, where the answer is a different word entirely.
The puzzles where rival is the trap
- acquaintancenoun, Tier 1, Foothills. The answer there is contact, in the sense "a person one knows slightly but who is not a close friend", so rival is there to be ruled out.
- sycophantnoun, Tier 3, Ridgeline. The answer there is toady, in the sense "a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important to gain advantage", with rival sitting one tile away.
- compareverb, Tier 4, High Camp. The answer there is equate, in the sense "consider or describe as similar, equal, or analogous", with rival sitting one tile away.
- aidenoun, Tier 5, Summit. The answer there is factotum, in the sense "a person who assists another, especially in an official capacity", so rival is there to be ruled out.
Play rival
The bank on this page is the bank the game plays from, so rival reaches you as a board rather than a definition: the sentence first, four tiles, and the meaning after you choose.
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Closest first: other people and roles words at Foothills, then the same tier across the rest of the library.
Why the near miss missed, in the game as well as here
Synonym Stack plays from this exact bank. rival carries 1 written reason line, and the game shows them the moment a round ends, whichever tile you tapped.