referee

From Middle English [Term?], from past participle of Old French referer (“to relate, to refer”), from Latin referre (“to carry back, to report, to notify”); as if refer +‎ -ee, that is, the person to whom something is referred for consideration.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌɹɛf.əˈɹiː/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌɹɛfəˈɹiː/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Indic) IPA^(key): /ˈrɛf(ə)ri/
• Rhymes: -iː

referee (plural referees)

1. (sports) An umpire or judge; an official who makes sure the rules are followed during a game.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:match official

   The referee kicked Jim out of the game for fighting.

2. A person who settles a dispute.
3. (UK) A person who writes a letter of reference or provides a reference by phone call for someone. (In the UK such a person is sometimes, and in the US the person is typically, referred to as a reference.)

   Your application, along with letters from three referees, should be received by January 31.

4. An expert who judges the manuscript of an article or book to decide if it should be published.

• In general, referee is used in sports where the primary match official moves around with the game (for example, association football, American football and basketball), while umpire is used in sports where the official stays (approximately) in one place during play (for example, baseball, cricket and tennis).
  • In sports where the main official is called a referee, umpire can mean an assistant referee or a linesperson. This is currently the case in American football and basketball, and was historically the case in association football.
  • In sports where the main official is called an umpire, referee can mean an off-field official who is concerned with the administration of the game and the adjudication of disputes about the rules (for example, the tournament referee in tennis or the match referee in cricket).
  • Sports with multiple officials of equal rank each patrolling part of the field tend to prefer umpire even when the officials follow the action; for example, field hockey and netball both have two umpires each covering half the pitch and Australian rules football games are overseen by up to four field umpires.
• There are exceptions to this rule: for example, the official in snooker is a referee despite remaining at the table during play, while the officials in regatta sailing are umpires despite following the action.
• A judge in sport is usually an off-field role primarily concerned with awarding points in sports such as gymnastics, rather than disciplining rule violations. See for example boxing, where the judges score from the ringside and the referee controls the match from inside the ring. There are occasional exceptions; an American football judge for example is an on-field official assisting the referee.

referee (third-person singular simple present referees, present participle refereeing, simple past and past participle refereed)

1. To act as a referee.

   He has to referee three hockey games this weekend.

   She has to finish refereeing an article for Nature.

From English referee.

• IPA^(key): /ˈrefereː/, [ˈre̞fe̞re̞ː]
• IPA^(key): /ˈreferiː/, [ˈre̞fe̞riː]
• Rhymes: -efereː
• Syllabification^(key): re‧fe‧ree
• Hyphenation^(key): re‧fe‧ree

referee

1. referee (expert who judges the manuscript of an article or book to decide if it should be published)

   Synonym: arvioija

• “referee”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 3 July 2023

Unadapted borrowing from English referee.

• IPA^(key): /refeˈɾi/ [re.feˈɾi], /ˈrefeɾi/ [ˈre.fe.ɾi]
• Rhymes: -i, -efeɾi
• Syllabification: re‧fe‧ree

referee m or f by sense (plural referees)

1. alternative form of réferi

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• “referee”, in Diccionario de americanismos [Dictionary of Americanisms] (in Spanish), Association of Academies of the Spanish Language [Spanish: Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española], 2010