entrepreneur
Americannoun
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a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
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an employer of productive labor; contractor.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
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the owner or manager of a business enterprise who, by risk and initiative, attempts to make profits
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a middleman or commercial intermediary
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of entrepreneur
First recorded in 1875–80; from French: literally, “one who undertakes (some task),” equivalent to entrepren(dre) “to undertake” (from Latin inter- inter- + prendere “to take,” variant of prehendere ) + -eur -eur; see enterprise
Explanation
An entrepreneur is someone who starts a new business. Little stores and huge companies both have entrepreneurs behind them. Do you have good ideas for products? Are you OK with the idea of risk? Then maybe you should be an entrepreneur. This is someone who founds a business, whether a tiny one or a huge one. Besides starting the business, the entrepreneur takes on the most of the risk by investing their own money and/or bringing in other investors. For an entrepreneur, their business is their baby.
Vocabulary lists containing entrepreneur
A Raisin in the Sun
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Fast Food Nation
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "E"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Nexstar, which also owns the cable network NewsNation, acquired The Hill in 2021 from New York-based entrepreneur James Finkelstein for $130 million.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 8, 2026
According to the Sunday Times, Cottrell is a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and is involved with the offshore gambling website Tether.bet.
From BBC • Jul. 6, 2026
“If there was a Mount Rushmore of fishing, Joan Wulff would be carved onto it,” said Charlie VanDercook, an entrepreneur and angler who, in 2025, bought the school with a business partner.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 5, 2026
In May the parliamentary watchdog announced it would probe Farage's non-disclosure of a £5 million gift aviation entrepreneur and crypto investor Christopher Harborne, which he received in 2024.
From Barron's • Jul. 5, 2026
Then in 1869 a local entrepreneur named Sylvester March built the cog railway, the first in the world.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
