Other forms: fighters
A fighter is somebody who fights, by trade or by nature. A street fighter, a professional fighter, she is a fighter.
In sport it covers boxers and martial artists — the fighters weighed in this morning. Said of somebody ill or in difficulty, it is high praise and means they will not give in: the doctors say she is a fighter. A fighter is also a fast military aircraft built to attack other aircraft — a fighter jet, fighter pilot — as against a bomber. Note freedom fighter, firefighter, and the phrase fighting fit.
1nounfighterSomebody who fights, by trade or by nature.
“He was a fighter long before anybody paid him for it.”
2nounfastA fast military aircraft built to attack other aircraft.
“Two fighters were scrambled and found nothing.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
fighter is somebody or something that fights.
Old English feohtere is simply the agent noun of feohtan, to fight — the -er ending doing the same work it does in baker and singer. The word is as old as the verb and has never meant anything else.
Old English
feohtere
Middle English
fightere
English, today
fighter
From Middle English fightere, feghtere, from Old English feohtere. Equivalent to fight + er.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA