the.com/applicant

means Someone formally asking for something — a job, a loan, a visa — by submitting a request to be considered.

from From Latin applicare, 'to attach or join to' — ad- ('to') plus plicare ('to fold'). An applicant is literally someone who 'folds themselves toward' or attaches their case to another, hoping to be joined with the job, the school, the loan. The word entered English in the 1600s, originally for anyone who applied themselves diligently to a task before narrowing, over time, to the specific posture of petitioning for something you don't yet have.