Meaning
The competitor thought most likely to win - the horse or runner leading the field, and by extension the candidate, product, or bidder that everyone expects to finish first. The word carries odds rather than certainty: front-runners are famous for being caught. Now more common in politics and markets than on the turf; the implied lesson - that leads get run down - travels with it. Regional use: General English (American political popularisation).
Origin
Straight from the racecourse. In horse racing a front-runner is the horse that runs at the head of the field, setting the pace with the race's outcome still undecided, and the word was established English racing vocabulary by the turn of the twentieth century. Etymonline records the political transfer - front-runner of political candidates - from 1908, in American English, explicitly as a metaphor from horse racing, and it has been indispensable to election coverage ever since. Dictionaries now define the word neutrally as the person or thing most likely to be awarded something or to succeed, but usage keeps the racing caution: a front-runner's lead is a fact about the present, not a promise about the finish, and every campaign story is written in the gap between the two.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a clear front-runner
- front-running (adjectival)
- the front-runner in the race
Usage Examples
- She arrived at the convention as the front-runner and left as the nominee, which is the version of the story front-runners rarely get to tell.
- The colt went off as the front-runner on the tote board and was passed two furlongs out.
- Every poll made the incumbent the clear front-runner; every debate reminded viewers why leads get run down.