conquistadores

Cultural  

1. The Spanish military leaders who established Spanish rule in the New World by overthrowing Native American governments. (See Hernando Cortés and Francisco Pizarro.)

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Example Sentences

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

To quote Daniela: “Our people survived slave ships. We survived Taíno genocide. We survived conquistadores and dictators. You’re telling me we can’t survive the D train to the Grand Concourse?”

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 11, 2021

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

From The New Yorker • Nov. 18, 2019

American civilizations resting on animal power might have been sending their own conquistadores to ravage Europe.

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