Noun: incumbent
| Singular | incumbent |
| Plural | incumbents |
Sample Sentences
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He has always remained friendly to me, though before his promotion, when he was an incumbent of this diocese, we had a little controversy about the Bible Society. [1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XXIV, in Daniel Deronda, volume II, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book III (Maidens Choosing), page 123:]
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But if they had waited about the store to see what would happen when he arrived who until last night anyway must have still believed himself the incumbent, they were disappointed. […] A few days later they learned that the new smith was living in the house […] [1940, William Faulkner, chapter 3, in The Hamlet […], London: Chatto & Windus, published 1979, →ISBN, book 1 (Flem), section 1, page 61:]
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Mr [Barack] Obama's problems were partly structural. An incumbent must defend the realities and compromises of government, while a challenger is freer to promise the earth, details to follow. Mr Obama's odd solution was to play both incumbent and challenger, jumping from a defence of his record to indignation at such ills as over-crowded classrooms and tax breaks for big oil companies. [2012 October 6, “The first presidential debate: Back in the centre, back in the game”, in The Economist, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 06 Oct 2012:]
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Just as interest grew under previous incumbent-but-one Grant Shapps, so interest could wane under new Transport Secretary Mark Harper. [2022 November 16, Philip Haigh, “Trans-Pennine … Transformative”, in Rail, number 970, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 43:]
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But the prospect of a Presidential election as a contest of the ancients is not a heartening one, and the anxieties it provokes cannot be dismissed as ageism. What are younger people, especially, to make of a political culture in which incumbents cling so tenaciously to their seats? The median age for senators is now around sixty-five. Mitt Romney, announcing his retirement, at the age of seventy-six, wasn't wrong to declare that it is time for a new generation of leaders to take the helm. [2023 September 24, David Remnick, “The Washington Gerontocracy”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 30 Sep 2023:]
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American capitalism is becoming like its European cousin: established firms with the scale and scope to deal with a growing thicket of regulations are doing well, but new companies are withering on the vine or selling themselves to incumbents. [2012 September 29, “Schumpeter: Fixing the capitalist machine”, in The Economist, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 Sep 2012:]
Nouns inflected like incumbent
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English incumbent, encumbent (“holder of an ecclesiastical benefice, dean, parson, etc.; cleric (?)”), from Medieval Latin incumbēns (“holder of a church position”) + Middle English -ent (suffix denoting one that causes, does, or promotes an action). Incumbēns is derived from Medieval Latin incumbō (“to obtain; to possess”), from Latin incumbō (“to lay upon, to lean or recline on; to fall upon, to press down on”): see etymology 1. See: Middle English Nouns '
incumbent', Middle English Nouns '
-ent', Latin Nouns '
incumbō'.