suitor

plural suitors · alternative suitour

1. One who pursues someone, especially a woman, for a romantic relationship or marriage; a wooer; one who falls in love with or courts someone.

   (Notice that "Lysias" begins from the realistic assumption that an attractive young man with many suitors will "gratify" one of them, the only question being which. Rightly or wrongly, he treats the question, "Shall I at all?" as already resolved.)

   1999, Martha Craven Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice, →ISBN, page 316

   Synonyms: beau, courter, sparker, wooer, admirer, adorer, baby, beloved

2. broadlyA person or organization that expresses an interest in working with, or taking over, another.

   […] and Mortimer asserted he had no shortage of suitors ready, willing, and able to make acquisition loans […]

   2016, Gary D. McGugan, Three Weeks Less a Day, page 43

   1 more example

   The Betaville blog wrote earlier this week about market speculation that Adevinta was attracting takeover interest, without naming the suitors.

   2023 September 21, Silas Brown, Dinesh Nair, Swetha Gopinath, “Blackstone, Permira Explore Bid for eBay-Backed Adevinta”, in Bloomberg.com

3. lawA party to a suit or litigation.

   Synonyms: litigant

4. One who sues, petitions, solicits, or entreats; a petitioner.

   Synonyms: applicant, claimant, plaintiff, pursuer, suer

present singular third person suitors · participle present suitoring · participle past suitored · past suitored · alternative suitour

1. To play the suitor; to woo; to make love.

   Synonyms: court, romance, address, beau, bedear, chase after, court, endear