When competitor came into the language, in the 16th century, there was a period of confrontation between two senses: “someone who seeks an objective in rivalry with others” and “someone who seeks an objective in association with others”. Of the two, it was the “rivals” meaning which carried through into modern English, but in Shakespeare, it is always the “association” meaning. So, when Feste says of Sir Toby and Maria “The competitors enter” (Twelfth Night IV.ii.10) he does not mean that they are in opposition to each other but that they are confederates in tricking Malvolio. And when Menas says to Pompey, about the Triumvirs, “These three world-sharers, these competitors” (Antony and Cleopatra II.vii.70), the two phrases seem contradictory without the correct sense. And later Caesar describes dead Antony as “my brother, my competitor In top of all design” (V.i.42).
David Crystal
David Crystal is the author, with Ben Crystal, of Shakespeare’s Words to be published by Penguin in June
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