colonizer

American  

[kol-uh-nahy-zer] / ˈkɒl əˌnaɪ zər /

noun

colonizers plural

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.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• colonizers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of colonizer

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

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

colonizer colonizers

If Greenland was to break from its Danish colonizer, it would become, five centuries after Columbus, the only independent nation in the Western Hemisphere whose governing language remained that of its pre-European ancestors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026

As Brigham Young, the Mormon colonizer, said, “This is the place.”

From New York Times ● Jan. 3, 2024

Rajoelina said he took up dual citizenship to secure his children’s education in former colonizer France.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 14, 2023

President Idriss Déby, who was fatally wounded on the battlefield in 2021, tamped down multiple rebellions during his 30-year reign, sometimes with the support of Chad’s former colonizer, France.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 23, 2023

There will always be, in emerging nations, an enduring attraction to the ways of the colonizer — I myself was not immune to it.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

The colonizers, four Chagossians aged 31 to 72, clambered aboard a dinghy and came ashore, waving British and American flags.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 19, 2026

But as human activities damage habitats and reduce biodiversity across regions, the number of possible colonizers falls.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 18, 2026

We started our hike by heading to the Oak of the Golden Dream, where gold was first discovered by colonizers in 1842.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2026

Mexican identity is often described in terms of mestizaje, which Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos described as a virtuous “blending” of races, including Mexico’s Indigenous peoples and European colonizers.

From Salon ● Dec. 17, 2025

The first British colonial militias fought Indigenous people and French and Spanish colonizers.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Related Words

• ruler