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

In Miami Beach, tech entrepreneur John Marshall built an elementary school that is expanding into a middle and soon a high school, called BaseCamp305, that he says instills an entrepreneurial spirit.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026

It’s not just entrepreneurial witches selling spells on Etsy.

From Salon • Apr. 1, 2026

But has the entrepreneurial spirit that he inherited from his grandfather and mother been passed down to his eight-year-old son?

From BBC • Mar. 25, 2026

Then, he pursued assorted careers in indie publishing, urban planning and entrepreneurial research before conclusively binding himself to a literary life.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 23, 2026

Up and down the street were entrepreneurial immigrants in colorful clothes—embroidered guayaberas and flowing kente and spray-painted T-shirts—hustling everything from mix tapes to T-shirts to incense from crowded sidewalk tables.

From "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore