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umpire

noun · verb

Simple meaning

An official who presides over a sports match.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

uhmpyer

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈʌmpaɪɚ

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. An official who presides over a sports match.

  2. cricket

    One of the two white-coated officials who preside over a cricket match.

  3. baseball

    An official at a baseball game

  4. baseball

    One of the officials who preside over a baseball game.

verb

  1. Be a referee or umpire in a sports competition

  2. transitive

    To decide as an umpire.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: An official who presides over a sports match.

Used this way, umpire is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a sporting use: familiar to anyone who follows the game, and puzzling to anyone who does not.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Official and authoritative
Usage feel
Formal and precise

Where it naturally appears

  • Sports
  • News/reporting
  • Everyday conversation

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Official / two

plate umpireleague umpirebaseball umpire

Other combinations

impartial umpirebase umpireneutral umpirechief umpire

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Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

noun

Sense: official who presides over a sports match

referee

verb

Sense: be a referee or umpire in a sports competition

referee

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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.