Etymology: < French compéter (14th cent.), < Latin competĕre in its earlier neuter sense, ‘to fall together, coincide, come together, be convenient or fitting, be due’, < com- together + petĕre to fall upon, assail, aim at, make for, try to reach, strive after, sue for, solicit, ask, seek. From the later active sense of competĕre we have compete v.²; the two senses are intermixed in the derivatives that follow, but competence, -ency, competent, competible, and their derivatives, belong in the main to this sense.

Etymology: representing Latin competĕre , in its post-classical active sense ‘to strive after (something) in company or together’, < com- together + petĕre to aim at, go toward, try to reach, seek, etc.: see compete v.¹ No such sense is recognized by Littré for modern French compéter , but Cotgrave has ‘competer , to be sufficient for, sutable with, agreeable vnto; also, to belong or appertaine to’ (= compete v.¹); also, ‘to demaund, or sue for the same thing that another doth’ (which corresponds to this). Florio 1598 has Italian competere ‘to contend or striue for any suite, office, place, or dignitie,’ [1611] ‘to contend or striue with another for maistrie’; Minsheu has Spanish compéter ‘to be meet for, to agree with’ (= compete v.¹); ‘to sue with another for anything, to content or striue for any suit, office, or dignity’. The early related words in English are competitor , competor ; compare also competence n., competency n. I. Though in occasional use in 17th cent., this verb is not in Johnson, nor in Todd 1818, Seager 1819, Jodrell 1820; it is given by Richardson (without quotations) as ‘now not uncommon in speech’; by critics, in 1824, it was styled ‘a Scotticism’, and ‘an American discovery’.