colonist

American  

[kol-uh-nist] / ˈkɒl ə nɪst /

noun

colonists plural

1. an inhabitant of a colony.

2. a member of a colonizing expedition.

3. (often initial capital letter) an inhabitant of the 13 British colonies that became the United States of America.

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colonist British  

/ ˈkɒlənɪst /

noun

1. a person who settles or colonizes an area

2. an inhabitant or member of a colony

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• colonists
  plural

Etymology

Origin of colonist

An Americanism dating back to 1695–1705; colon(y) + -ist

Explanation

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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

colonist colonists

However, the researchers report their work revealed the "richness, abundance and composition" of the bee populations were "signficantly impacted by agricultural colonization after as little as 10-17 years of settlement by colonist farmers and ranchers."

From Science Daily ● Apr. 10, 2024

Pocahontas died several years later in March 1617 in Gravesend, England, while colonist John Rolfe died around March 1622, he added.

From BBC ● Jan. 4, 2023

It stands on the site where Samuel de Champlain, the French colonist and navigator who founded Quebec and New France, built a chapel in 1633.

From Reuters ● Jul. 28, 2022

Senegalese Author Mariama Bâ: “The assimilationist dream of the colonist drew into its crucible our mode of thought and way of life.”

From Textbooks ● Dec. 21, 2021

In the Disney version, Smith returns to England after a bad colonist shoots him in the shoulder.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

One of the main reasons colonists rebelled against the crown was that they wanted more Indigenous land—they wanted to move farther west into North America, but the king was telling them no.

From Slate ● Jul. 3, 2026

In the mural “Troubled Island,” Noni Olabisi chronicles the Haitian struggle for independence, including how suffering under French colonists led to the 1791 slave rebellion.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026

In another pending case about police sweeps of cellphone location data, lawyers debated whether warrants requiring Google to share information were akin to how British customs officers harassed colonists before the American Revolution.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026

This provides "very little evidence that the yeasts have been multiplying over millennia," he said, adding that he believed they were "relatively recent colonists of the mummy's body".

From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026

One of the soldiers tells me that before he was injured, Captain Smith was able to make peace with Parahunt, the werowance of a village that has been ransacked by our colonists.

From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone

Related Words

• colonizer