colonizer

[ kol-uh-nahy-zer ]

noun

1. 1. a nation or government that claims a territory other than its own, forcibly taking control over the population and resources located in that territory and usually sending some of its own people to settle there:

      In the past, whole continents have been appropriated by colonizers such as Britain, Spain, France, and Portugal.

   2. any of the settlers who come from such a nation to live in or help control the territory their government has claimed:

      The Red River was the scene of a major historic battle between European colonizers and Canada’s Indigenous people.

   3. Often Disparaging and Offensive. a descendant of any of these settlers, or any person belonging to their culture and enjoying the advantages of the power structure set up by the colonizing nation.
2. a person who is among the first to settle in an area:

   The initial colonizers of the Arctic were thought to have descended from inhabitants of the forested south.

3. Biology. a species of plant or animal that moves or is transported to a new habitat and seeks to establish itself there:

   Ecologists are interested in why some species are successful colonizers while others are not.

4. Microbiology, Medicine/Medical. a microbe that multiplies in or on another organism, especially one that does so without causing disease or infection, such as certain bacteria in the gut or on the skin of humans.

Word History and Origins

Origin of colonizer¹

First recorded in 1720–30; colonize ( def ) + -er ¹( def )

Example Sentences

I had no new desk to colonize with my favorite knick-knacks and photos, and I still don’t know what the best office lunch spots are.

From Quartz

The pace at which he envisions these happening in order to make it possible to colonize Mars with a continuous human population requires the kind of rapid recycling and reflying of Super Heavy he described today with this proposed new landing method.

From TechCrunch

Futurists often say that these visions “colonize the future,” analogous to the colonization of continents belonging to other peoples.

From Nautilus

The question for visionary artists, innovative toy makers, and responsible parents is how to avoid cultural imperatives that colonize the future.

From Nautilus

They’re now colonizing the TikTok Wild West, and in 2021 the app is fated to evolve into a full-on business model.

From Fortune

Russia is of course the colonizer and there was a sort of “mental revolution” against Russian power.

From The Daily Beast

When it came to Haiti, France was first a brutal colonizer, and then a usurious bully.

From The Daily Beast

We have not spoken of the Chancellor as an argonaut, of the Chancellor as a colonizer.

From Project Gutenberg

Captain John Smith, soldier, colonizer and Virginian planter, writing in 1606 describes two sorts of wild grapes.

From Project Gutenberg

The notion, so widely current in this country, that Spain "failed" as a colonizer, arises from a faulty method.

From Project Gutenberg

Roberval, French colonizer, 82;commissioned viceroy and lieutenant-general of Canada, 82.

From Project Gutenberg

With this inglorious departure ends the career of the first great French colonizer.

From Project Gutenberg

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