entrepreneurial

American  

[ahn-truh-pruh-nur-ee-uhl, -noor-] / ˌɑn trə prəˈnɜr i əl, -ˈnʊər- /

adjective

1. of or relating to a business or endeavor, especially one that involves considerable individual initiative and risk.

   The article highlights what some cities are doing to promote entrepreneurial development.

   Innovation, when combined with an entrepreneurial streak, can be a powerful catalyst for economic growth.

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Other Word Forms

• entrepreneurialism
  noun
• entrepreneurism
  noun
• nonentrepreneurial
  adjective
• semientrepreneurial
  adjective
• entrepreneurially
  adverb

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Etymology

Origin of entrepreneurial

entrepreneur ( def. ) + -ial ( def. )

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Explanation

You can call someone willing to take financial risks in new ventures entrepreneurial. Caught up in the entrepreneurial spirit, you felt like a modern-day pioneer braving the wild frontier of business. Then you ran out of lemonade. Entrepreneurial is the adjective form of the noun "entrepreneur," someone investing in risky financial situations. The base noun can be traced to the Latin prendere, "to take," and the 19th Century French entrepreneur, "one who undertakes or manages." It often involves a risky undertaking, however, including the possibility of losing everything. The 19th-Century English Physicist Michael Faraday once broke it down this way: “The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication.”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

entrepreneurial

Waldron has said that starting his career at a smaller firm enabled him to take on bigger responsibilities and be more entrepreneurial.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026

Dolly’s final public appearance came in June when, true to her entrepreneurial form, she appeared at the opening of Dolly’s Tennessean Travel Stop, a Southern-friend truck stop designed to compete with the popular chain Buc-ee’s.

From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026

Haghirian also contrasts this with the more entrepreneurial culture of the US, arguing that Japanese firms are highly sensitive to error, uncertainty and reputational risk.

From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026

In 2012, Kushner displayed an entrepreneurial streak, co-founding Oscar, a health tech and insurer that now is publicly traded with a market capitalization of about $9 billion.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

Up and down the street were entrepreneurial immigrants in colorful clothes—embroidered guayaberas and flowing kente and spray-painted T-shirts—hustling everything from mix tapes to T-shirts to incense from crowded sidewalk tables.

From "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore

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