Competitive inhibition is interruption of a chemical pathway owing to one chemical substance inhibiting the effect of another by competing with it for binding or bonding. Any metabolic or chemical messenger system can potentially be affected by this principle, but several classes of competitive inhibition are especially important in biochemistry and medicine, including the competitive form of enzyme inhibition, the competitive form of receptor antagonism, the competitive form of antimetabolite activity, and the competitive form of poisoning (which can include any of the aforementioned types).

In competitive inhibition of enzyme catalysis, binding of an inhibitor prevents binding of the target molecule of the enzyme, also known as the substrate. This is accomplished by blocking the binding site of the substrate – the active site – by some means. The V_max indicates the maximum velocity of the reaction, while the K_m is the amount of substrate needed to reach half of the V_max. K_m also plays a part in indicating the tendency of the substrate to bind the enzyme. Competitive inhibition can be overcome by adding more substrate to the reaction, which increases the chances of the enzyme and substrate binding. As a result, competitive inhibition alters only the K_m, leaving the V_max the same. This can be demonstrated using enzyme kinetics plots such as the Michaelis–Menten or the Lineweaver-Burk plot. Once the inhibitor is bound to the enzyme, the slope will be affected, as the K_m either increases or decreases from the original K_m of the reaction.

Most competitive inhibitors function by binding reversibly to the active site of the enzyme. As a result, many sources state that this is the defining feature of competitive inhibitors. This, however, is a misleading oversimplification, as there are many possible mechanisms by which an enzyme may bind either the inhibitor or the substrate but never both at the same time. For example, allosteric inhibitors may display competitive, non-competitive, or uncompetitive inhibition.

In competitive inhibition, an inhibitor that resembles the normal substrate binds to the enzyme, usually at the active site, and prevents the substrate from binding. At any given moment, the enzyme may be bound to the inhibitor, the substrate, or neither, but it cannot bind both at the same time. During competitive inhibition, the inhibitor and substrate compete for the active site. The active site is a region on an enzyme to which a particular protein or substrate can bind. The active site will thus only allow one of the two complexes to bind to the site, either allowing a reaction to occur or yielding it. In competitive inhibition, the inhibitor resembles the substrate, taking its place and binding to the active site of an enzyme. Increasing the substrate concentration would diminish the "competition" for the substrate to properly bind to the active site and allow a reaction to occur. When the substrate is of higher concentration than the concentration of the competitive inhibitor, it is more probable that the substrate will come into contact with the enzyme's active site than with the inhibitor's.^{[citation needed]}

Competitive inhibitors are commonly used to make pharmaceuticals. For example, methotrexate is a chemotherapy drug that acts as a competitive inhibitor. It is structurally similar to the coenzyme, folate, which binds to the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase. This enzyme is part of the synthesis of DNA and RNA, and when methotrexate binds the enzyme, it renders it inactive, so that it cannot synthesize DNA and RNA. The cancer cells are thus unable to grow and divide. Another example: prostaglandin are made in large amounts as a response to pain and can cause inflammation. Essential fatty acids form the prostaglandins; when this was discovered, it turned out that these were actually very good inhibitors to prostaglandins. These fatty acids inhibitors have been used as drugs to relieve pain because they can act as the substrate, and bind to the enzyme, and block prostaglandins.

An example of non-drug related competitive inhibition is in the prevention of browning of fruits and vegetables. For example, tyrosinase, an enzyme within mushrooms, normally binds to the substrate, monophenols, and forms brown o-quinones. Competitive substrates, such as 4-substituted benzaldehydes for mushrooms, compete with the substrate lowering the amount of the monophenols that bind. These inhibitory compounds added to the produce keep it fresh for longer periods of time by decreasing the binding of the monophenols that cause browning. This allows for an increase in produce quality as well as shelf life.^{[citation needed]}

Competitive inhibition can be reversible or irreversible. If it is reversible inhibition, then effects of the inhibitor can be overcome by increasing substrate concentration. If it is irreversible, the only way to overcome it is to produce more of the target (and typically degrade and/or excrete the irreversibly inhibited target).

In virtually every case, competitive inhibitors bind in the same binding site (active site) as the substrate, but same-site binding is not a requirement. A competitive inhibitor could bind to an allosteric site of the free enzyme and prevent substrate binding, as long as it does not bind to the allosteric site when the substrate is bound. For example, strychnine acts as an allosteric inhibitor of the glycine receptor in the mammalian spinal cord and brain stem. Glycine is a major post-synaptic inhibitory neurotransmitter with a specific receptor site. Strychnine binds to an alternate site that reduces the affinity of the glycine receptor for glycine, resulting in convulsions due to lessened inhibition by the glycine.