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• explorer
  explorer

  noun

  a person or thing that explores.
• Explorer
  Explorer

  noun

  a member of the senior branch of the Scouts

explorer

American  

[ik-splawr-er] / ɪkˈsplɔr ər /

noun

• explorers
  plural

1. a person or thing that explores.

2. a person who investigates unknown regions.

   the great explorers of the Renaissance.

3. any instrument used in exploring or sounding a wound, a cavity in a tooth, or the like.

4. Also called Explorer Scout. (initial capital letter) a person between the ages 14 and 20 who is an active participant in the exploring program sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America.

5. (initial capital letter) one of a long series of U.S. scientific satellites: Explorer 1 (1958) was the first U.S. artificial satellite.

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Explorer ¹ British  

/ ɪkˈsplɔːrə /

noun

1. Brit equivalent: Venture Scout. a member of the senior branch of the Scouts

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Explorer ² British  

/ ɪkˈsplɔːrə /

noun

1. any of the first series of US satellites. Explorer 1 , launched in 1958, confirmed the existence of intense radiation belts around the earth

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• explorers
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of explorer

First recorded in 1675–85; explore + -er ¹

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Explanation

An explorer is a person who sets out to discover something by going somewhere unfamiliar. You might think Marco Polo is just a game to play in the pool, but Marco Polo was actually a famous explorer in the 13th century. In ancient Greece, the explorer Pytheas travelled to what is now Great Britain and Germany, and the Chinese explorer Wang Dayuan explored the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea in the second century BCE. More recently, explorers have voyaged to the moon and outer space. Before the late seventeenth century, this kind of adventurer was called an exploratour, from the Latin root explorare, "examine or investigate."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

explorer Explorer explorers

In the 1770s, Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza led an expedition of settlers into what would later become California, bringing donkeys and horses with him.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

Lynas Rare Earths has agreed to buy Meteoric Resources in an all-share deal that values the Australia-listed explorer at around $672 million.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026

He was the first person to visit both north and south poles by surface means in the early 1980s and has been described by The Guinness Book of Records as "the world's greatest living explorer".

From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026

It would take 118 years for a spacecraft to travel far enough away to find it, based on estimates from the speed of Nasa’s New Horizons explorer.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 9, 2026

“You’d have to be an explorer to find your way around in this fog.”

From "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman

ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, 'Juice', is humankind's next bold mission to the outer Solar System.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 3, 2026

No other employee was paid more than $5,000 from 2016 to 2024, according to FLAG’s federal filings, obtained through ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.

From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2026

The European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, known as JUICE, launched in April 2023 and is scheduled to arrive at Jupiter in July 2031.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026

She has also sailed to Antarctica with Quark Expeditions on the Ocean Explorer, which debuted in 2021, and on yacht-like vessels to Alaska with smaller operators.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 17, 2026

She took the Island Explorer, the free bus that makes a continuous loop of the island, and got off at the closest stop to Vivian’s, about a ten-minute walk.

From "Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline

Dr Konyak points to explorers, colonial officials, missionaries and photographers drawn to tattooed faces, ornaments, weapons and headhunting, while the lives behind them often receded from view.

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026

Not a very imaginative lot, those Spanish explorers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026

If successful, future explorers might eventually live on Mars without relying on protective domes.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 17, 2026

Some explorers who have posted about the IBM site say they follow an observe-and-preserve ethos and reject vandalism.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026

Southeast and the Mississippi River system, their destruction was accomplished largely by germs alone, introduced by early European explorers and advancing ahead of them.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

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