conquistador

American  

[kon-kwis-tuh-dawr, kong-, kawng-kees-tah-thawr] / kɒnˈkwɪs təˌdɔr, kɒŋ-, kɔŋˌkis tɑˈðɔr /

noun

conquistadors, plural conquistadores plural

1. one of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru in the 16th century.

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conquistador British  

/ kɒnˈkwɪstəˌdɔː, konkistaˈðor /

noun

1. an adventurer or conqueror, esp one of the Spanish conquerors of the New World in the 16th century

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• conquistadores
  plural
• conquistadors
  plural

Etymology

Origin of conquistador

1540–50; < Spanish equivalent to conquist ( ar ) to conquer ( see conquest) + -ador -ator

Explanation

A conquistador is a person who is out to conquer new territory. A conquistador was the name given to the Fifteenth-to-Seventeenth century Spanish and Portugese soldiers who conquered much of the world, most famously the Central and Southern Americas. Not nice guys, but effective, and the term is still used today to describe certain people — ruthless business types, etc — who are brutally efficient at what they do. The most famous conquistador was the Spanish adventurer, Hernando Cortes, who subdued the mighty Aztec Empire of Mexico. The word comes, not surprisingly, from the Spanish verb conquistar, "to conquer."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

conquistador conquistadores conquistadors

Landing in Peru in 1531, during the Inca Civil War, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro found the Inca Road an ideal conduit for seizing the empire and draining it of its treasure.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025

The FBI has returned a 500-year-old stolen document signed by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés to Mexico.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2025

Others credit Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, who got a taste of chocolate after being served Xocolatl by Montezuma himself.

From Salon ● Feb. 17, 2025

To do so, he elicits help from fellow students, but their presentation is derailed by unlikely apparitions: a conquistador, a small child, Laura Linney.

From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2024

When Hernando de Soto became the first European conquistador to march through the southeastern United States, in 1540, he came across Indian town sites abandoned two years earlier because the inhabitants had died in epidemics.

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

But the preoccupations among the conquistadores are plunder, religious conversions or, in Magellan’s case, an impulse to bring the world to his feet by making it navigable.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026

Peru's largest archaeological sites are located outside Lima in places such as Cusco, which was the capital of the Inca Empire and fell to Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century.

From Reuters ● Nov. 22, 2023

Some of the vines had been planted centuries earlier, by conquistadores and missionaries.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 18, 2019

Spanish conquistadores came to this region in the 16th century seeking the fabled Seven Cities of Gold.

From New York Times ● Nov. 6, 2019

Numerous as were the Native American victims of the murderous Spanish conquistadores, they were far outnumbered by the victims of murderous Spanish microbes.

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

Las Casas’ arguments about Native Americans softened the hearts of very few Christian conquistadors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2025

Somewhat later, Spanish conquistadors followed Columbus across the Atlantic to conquer the Aztec and Incan empires, occupying significant parts of the Americas.

From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2024

The new findings, published in the scientific journal Nature, call into question previous theories concerning the spread of syphilis by the Spanish conquistadors.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 24, 2024

Across Mexico, hundreds of people take to the skies this way, spiraling gently to earth and preserving an Indigenous tradition that survived the Spanish conquistadors perhaps simply because it is jaw-dropping.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2023

Because most Europeans contracted the disease in childhood, the great majority of European adults, the conquistadors among them, were immune.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann