plural of candidate

A novel by Voltaire (in which the protagonist shares his moniker with the title.) / The Operetta of the same name, by Leonard Bernstein. / A naive and innocent person.

comparative form of candid: more candid

The quality of being candid.

A person, especially a politician, who has unknowingly been convinced to act to benefit some interest.

(Britain) One who enters an examination without being enrolled as a student at the educational establishment where it is given.

(US) One who is nominated unexpectedly, without previously having been discussed or considered as a likely choice

(politics, derogatory) A political candidate who is under the control or influence of another person.

(software engineering) A version of a program that is nearly ready for release but may still have a few bugs; the status between beta version and release version.

(computing, databases) In the design of a database table, a column (or an irreducible group of them) able to identify every row of the table. One of the candidate keys (abbreviated CKs) will be the primary key.