A candidate, or nominee, is the prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position; for example:
- to be elected to an office — in this case a candidate selection procedure occurs.
- to receive membership in a group
"Nomination" is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to an office by a political party, or the bestowing of an honor or award. This person is called a "nominee," though nominee often is used interchangeably with "candidate." "Presumptive nominee" is a term used when a person or organization believes that the nomination is inevitable. The act of being a candidate in a race for either a party nomination or for electoral office is called a "candidacy."
"Candidate" is a derivative of the Latin "candida" (white). In Ancient Rome, people running for political office would usually wear togas chalked and bleached to be bright white at speeches, debates, conventions, and other public functions.
Read more about Candidate: Candidates in Elections, Presumptive Nominee, Age of Candidacy
Famous quotes containing the word candidate:
“I have the greatest aversion to being a candidate on a ticket with a man whose record as an upright public man is to be in question—to be defended from the beginning to the end.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“A candidate once called his opponent “a willful, obstinate, unsavory, obnoxious, pusillanimous, pestilential, pernicious, and perversable liar” without pausing for breath, and even his enemies removed their hats.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Hear, then, a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse,
In no ignoble verse;
But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first-fruits of Poesy were given,
To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of Heaven.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)