"prizefight" meaning in English

See prizefight in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈpraɪz(ˌ)faɪt/ Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-prizefight.wav [US] Forms: prizefights [plural], prize fight [alternative]
Etymology: From prize + fight – the term prize originally referred to rank advancement, not a monetary prize. Based on Renaissance English Prize Playing (16th century) within the Company of Maisters of the Science of Defence [sic] – public rank advancement fights within the organization, wherein the “prize” was rank advancement. The company later became defunct, while the term was revived in late 17th century for public shows of street fighters, which eventually developed into modern boxing. In modern times, reinterpreted to mean “a fight for a (monetary) prize”. Etymology templates: {{ety|en|:af|prize|fight|tree=1}}, {{af|en|prize|fight}} prize + fight Head templates: {{en-noun}} prizefight (plural prizefights)
  1. A professional boxing match, in which two boxers compete for a prize (usually money). Wikipedia link: Company of Masters, Prize Playing Related terms: prizefighter, prizefighting, prizing [obsolete]

Inflected forms

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  "etymology_text": "From prize + fight – the term prize originally referred to rank advancement, not a monetary prize.\nBased on Renaissance English Prize Playing (16th century) within the Company of Maisters of the Science of Defence [sic] – public rank advancement fights within the organization, wherein the “prize” was rank advancement. The company later became defunct, while the term was revived in late 17th century for public shows of street fighters, which eventually developed into modern boxing.\nIn modern times, reinterpreted to mean “a fight for a (monetary) prize”.",
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Download raw JSONL data for prizefight meaning in English (3.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.