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

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

See Examples For:

entrepreneurial

"Overall, we will drive to be more entrepreneurial, to engage more with industry, to realize greater revenue and greater income into our program, which means there's less pressure on the public purse," Chapman said.

From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026

Still, the country grew rapidly thanks to immigration, expanding frontiers and the entrepreneurial energy that so impressed Tocqueville.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 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

Later that winter he found another entrepreneurial opportunity.

From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown