ringer
noun
Simple meaning
Someone who is almost identical to another.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ringerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹɪŋɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
sports
A person who rings church bells (as for summoning the congregation)
sports
A person who is almost identical to another
sports
A person highly proficient at a skill or sport who is brought in, often fraudulently, to supplement a team.
horse racing
A horse fraudulently entered in a race using the name of another horse.
A person, animal, or entity which resembles another so closely as to be taken for the other; a look-alike (now usually in the phrase dead ringer).
Australia
The champion shearer of a shearing shed.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person who rings church bells (as for summoning the congregation)
Used this way, ringer is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a religious use: it carries the weight of tradition and ceremony.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
- Sports
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ringer
- “My phone's ringer was on silent, so I missed your call.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Sound loudly and sonorously.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An aqueous solution containing the chlorides of sodium and potassium and calcium that is isotonic to animal tissues.
A person who is almost identical to another.
A person who rings church bells (as for summoning the congregation).
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.