fitness

Meanings

1. 1noununcountable

   The state of having a healthy, strong body that can do physical activity well, usually built up through exercise.

   Grammar: Uncountable: improve your fitness, not a fitness.

   Patterns

   • fitness level
   • improve your fitness

   Regular swimming has greatly improved her fitness.

   The recruits must pass a test of physical fitness before training.

   He lost his fitness during the winter break and had to start slowly.

2. 2noununcountableformal

   The quality of being suitable or good enough for a particular purpose or role.

   Grammar: Usually followed by for or to: fitness for the job, fitness to practice.

   Patterns

   • fitness for something
   • fitness to do something

   The committee questioned his fitness for public office.

   Inspectors check a ship's fitness to sail before every voyage.

   The court examined the doctor's fitness to practice.

3. 3noununcountablebiologytechnical

   In biology, how well an organism's inherited traits help it survive and produce offspring in its environment.

   Grammar: A technical biology sense: evolutionary fitness, not exercise.

   Patterns

   • the fitness of an organism

   Longer legs gave the deer greater fitness in open grassland.

   Biologists measure fitness by the number of surviving offspring.

   A trait that lowers fitness tends to disappear over generations.

Common combinations

physical fitness

Physical fitness depends on exercise, sleep and a balanced diet.

improve fitness

Brisk walking is an easy way to improve fitness.

fitness level

Choose a class that matches your fitness level.

cardiovascular fitness

Cycling builds cardiovascular fitness quickly.

fitness for purpose

The tests prove the product's fitness for purpose.

fitness tracker

My fitness tracker counts my steps and heart rate.

Synonyms and how they differ

health

Health is the wider state of being free from illness, whereas fitness focuses on strength, stamina and the body's ability to perform.

conditioning

Conditioning is the training process that builds fitness, so it names the effort rather than the result.

suitability

Suitability replaces fitness in the second sense but is more general and less formal.

stamina

Stamina is just the ability to keep going for a long time, a single part of overall fitness.

Opposites

Word family

fit adjective

healthy and strong, or suitable

fit verb

to be the right size or shape

fitter adjective

more physically fit than before

unfit adjective

not healthy enough or not suitable

fitly adverb

in a suitable way (formal, rare)

Commonly confused: fitness or fitment? fitness or wellness?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “fitness”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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