umpire
4 synonyms and 1 antonym for umpire, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.
Noun — An official who oversees a sports match and enforces its rules, such as in baseball, cricket, or tennis.
Synonyms
Less common
Still standard English, but they carry more weight.
Rare, literary or technical
Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.
Synonyms by Meaning
1. noun
An official who oversees a sports match and enforces its rules, such as in baseball, cricket, or tennis.
“The umpire signaled that the pitch was a strike.”
2. noun
A neutral person chosen to settle a dispute between two other parties.
“The two neighbors agreed to let a mutual friend umpire their disagreement over the fence line.”
Opposites
3. verb
To serve as the official who judges a game or a dispute.
“He has umpired professional baseball games for over a decade.”
How to use umpire
The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.
Etymology
From a Middle English mishearing of "a noumper" as "an oumper" — the same kind of word-boundary shift that gave us "an apron" from "a napron." It ultimately traces to Old French nonper, "not equal," since an umpire is the odd, tie-breaking third party.
Full origin of umpire →