sportiste

Sportiste is a French noun that designates a person who participates in sport, especially as a competitive or professional athlete. The term is formed with the suffix -iste, a productive French ending that denotes a person associated with a field or activity, similar to words like artiste or pianiste. Sportiste is gendered: un sportiste for a male athlete and une sportiste for a female athlete.

Usage tends to be formal or institutional, and you will find sportiste used in sports journalism, federation communications, and biographical contexts. It can refer to athletes across disciplines or to sportspeople in general. The plural form is les sportistes, and it occurs in compounds such as sportistes olympiques or sportifs de haut niveau.

Relation to other terms: athlète is another common French word for an athlete. While athlète often emphasizes physical capacity and competitive prowess, sportiste can carry a nuance of participation in sport as a social practice or occupation. In practice, however, the terms are frequently used interchangeably, depending on context, register, and intention.

See also: athlete, sport, French language, sports journalism, professional sports.