[ad. L. āthlēta, ad. Gr. ἀθλητής, n. of agent f. ἀθλέ-ειν to contend for a prize, f. ἆθλος contest, ἆθλον prize. Before c. 1750 always in L. form, which is still occas. used in sense 1.]
1. A competitor in the physical exercises—such as running, leaping, boxing, wrestling—that formed part of the public games in ancient Greece and Rome.
1528. Paynell, Salerne Regim., E iij b. Porke … nourisheth mooste: wherof those that be called athlete [= -æ] haue beste experience.
1683. Cave, Ecclesiastici, 235. A Bishop, not an Athleta or Champion.
1741. P. Delany, David, I. Contents ix. (T.). Dioxippus, the Athenian Athlete.
1756. Miss Talbot, in Mrs. Carter’s Lett. (1809), II. 215. We have looked in Johnson for Athlete, no such word there.
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Org., § 5. 241. The barbarised athlete of the arena.
1877. Bryant, Ruins Italica, ii. But where the combatant With his bare arms, the strong athleta where?
2. One who by special training and exercise has acquired great physical strength; one whose profession it is to exhibit feats of strength and activity; a physically powerful, robust, vigorous man.
1827. Scott, in Lockhart, lxxiii. (1842), 654. He was a little man, dumpled up together…. Though so little of an athlete, he nevertheless beat off Dr. Wolcott.
1881. Phillipps-Wolley, Sport in Crimea, 280. The jump … was easily within the powers of the most third-rate athlete.
3. fig.
1759. Adam Smith, Mor. Sent., VII. § 2 (1767), 102 (R.). Having opposed to him a vigorous athlete, over whom … the victory was more glorious, and equally certain.
1876. Lowell, Poet. Wks. (1879), 470. The long-proved athletes of debate.
