colonist

/ˈkɑlənəst/

/ˈkɒlənɪst/

Other forms: colonists

A colonist is a member of a government-backed group that settles in a new country or region. The land that's claimed by a colonist is usually already occupied by another group of people.

A colonist can also be called a settler, someone who helps start a settlement in a new land. You might think of colonial America and the original colonists, British subjects who settled along the eastern seaboard and claimed the land as their own, despite the presence of native people. Throughout history, colonists have tended to come from Western countries. At the heart of the word colonist is the Latin root colere, "to inhabit, tend, or guard."

Definitions of colonist

1. noun

   a person who settles in a new colony or moves into new country
   synonyms: settler

   examples:

   John Endecott

   born in England; in 1629 he became the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1588-1665)

   Anne Hutchinson

   American colonist (born in England) who was banished from Boston for her religious views (1591-1643)

   Peter Minnewit

   Dutch colonist who bought Manhattan from the Native Americans for the equivalent of $24 (1580-1638)

   Miles Standish

   English colonist in America; leader of the Pilgrims in the early days of the Plymouth Colony (1584-1656)

   Roger Williams

   English clergyman and colonist who was expelled from Massachusetts for criticizing Puritanism; he founded Providence in 1636 and obtained a royal charter for Rhode Island in 1663 (1603-1683)

   Edward Winslow

   English colonial administrator who traveled to America on the Mayflower and served as the first governor of the Plymouth Colony (1595-1655)

   types:

   Pilgrim, Pilgrim Father

   one of the colonists from England who sailed to America on the Mayflower and founded the colony of Plymouth in New England in 1620

   pioneer

   one the first colonists or settlers in a new territory

   sourdough

   a settler or prospector (especially in western United States or northwest Canada and Alaska)

   homesteader, nester, squatter

   someone who settles lawfully on government land with the intent to acquire title to it

   bushman

   a dweller in the Australian bush country

   backwoodsman, frontiersman, mountain man

   a man who lives on the frontier

   frontierswoman

   a woman who lives on the frontier

   type of:

   migrant, migrator

   traveler who moves from one region or country to another