entrepreneurial
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of entrepreneurial
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.”
Vocabulary lists containing entrepreneurial
Words to Describe Yourself on a Resume
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"Creativity at Work" and "The Hidden Secrets of the Creative Mind"
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"Why Exploring the Ocean Is Mankind's Next Giant Leap," Vocabulary from the commentary
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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.
In response, the U.S. is mobilizing private capital, engineering talent, entrepreneurial risk-taking and strategic government support.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
“The program leverages housing market forces, entrepreneurial innovation and private accountability to increase housing supply,” former HUD Secretary Ben Carson told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2025.
From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026
“I like to think of L.A. as the wild west, so there’s this entrepreneurial spirit in L.A. and in art in L.A.,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
India, which is WhatsApp's largest market, has also been the centre of much of his entrepreneurial career.
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2026
The result, with the arrival of Western technology, is that the more entrepreneurial societies are now exploiting Western technology to overwhelm their conservative neighbors.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
