entrepreneurial

American  

[ahn-truh-pruh-nur-ee-uhl, -noor-] / ˌɑn trə prəˈnɜr i əl, -ˈnʊər- /

adjective

1. of or relating to a business or endeavor, especially one that involves considerable individual initiative and risk.

   The article highlights what some cities are doing to promote entrepreneurial development.

   Innovation, when combined with an entrepreneurial streak, can be a powerful catalyst for economic growth.

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Other Word Forms

• entrepreneurialism
  noun
• entrepreneurially
  adverb
• entrepreneurism
  noun
• nonentrepreneurial
  adjective
• semientrepreneurial
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of entrepreneurial

entrepreneur ( def. ) + -ial ( def. )

Explanation

You can call someone willing to take financial risks in new ventures entrepreneurial. Caught up in the entrepreneurial spirit, you felt like a modern-day pioneer braving the wild frontier of business. Then you ran out of lemonade. Entrepreneurial is the adjective form of the noun "entrepreneur," someone investing in risky financial situations. The base noun can be traced to the Latin prendere, "to take," and the 19th Century French entrepreneur, "one who undertakes or manages." It often involves a risky undertaking, however, including the possibility of losing everything. The 19th-Century English Physicist Michael Faraday once broke it down this way: “The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication.”

Example Sentences

“It’s almost a kind of entrepreneurial thing: You’ve got to go out and build a majority each time, and those alliances shift.”

From Los Angeles Times • May 31, 2026

Pierce's entrepreneurial journey began while studying interior design at university.

From BBC • May 25, 2026

Many in the Defense Department didn’t realize that Johnson’s streamlined, entrepreneurial management style at the Skunk Works was the reason it produced results, often at lower costs than other more-audited defense programs.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 18, 2026

He was managing director at Thiel’s Clarium Capital and CEO of the Thiel Foundation, and co-founder of the Thiel Fellowship, which offers university students $250,000 to drop out and pursue entrepreneurial interests.

From Salon • May 7, 2026

So my dad, with his entrepreneurial spirit, planned a fund-raising dinner at a local hotel, inviting some well-known speakers from the community as entertainment.

From "Proud" by Ibtihaj Muhammad