qualifier
🇺🇸
/ˈkwɑːlɪfaɪər/
🇬🇧
/ˈkwɒlɪfaɪə(r)/
Someone or a team that wins to join a bigger contest
After winning the match, they became the qualifier for the next round.
A competition you need to win to get into a bigger one
Their team played in a tough qualifier last week.
A word that describes another word in more detail
In the phrase 'a very fast runner', 'very' is a qualifier that tells us how fast the runner is.