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• explorer
  explorer

  noun

  a person or thing that explores.
• Explorer
  Explorer

  noun

  a member of the senior branch of the Scouts

explorer

American  

[ik-splawr-er] / ɪkˈsplɔr ər /

noun

1. a person or thing that explores.

2. a person who investigates unknown regions.

   the great explorers of the Renaissance.

3. any instrument used in exploring or sounding a wound, a cavity in a tooth, or the like.

4. Also called Explorer Scout.  (initial capital letter) a person between the ages 14 and 20 who is an active participant in the exploring program sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America.

5. (initial capital letter) one of a long series of U.S. scientific satellites: Explorer 1 (1958) was the first U.S. artificial satellite.

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Explorer ¹ British  

/ ɪkˈsplɔːrə /

noun

1. Brit equivalent: Venture Scout.  a member of the senior branch of the Scouts

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Explorer ² British  

/ ɪkˈsplɔːrə /

noun

1. any of the first series of US satellites. Explorer 1 , launched in 1958, confirmed the existence of intense radiation belts around the earth

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Etymology

Origin of explorer

First recorded in 1675–85; explore + -er ¹

Explanation

An explorer is a person who sets out to discover something by going somewhere unfamiliar. You might think Marco Polo is just a game to play in the pool, but Marco Polo was actually a famous explorer in the 13th century. In ancient Greece, the explorer Pytheas travelled to what is now Great Britain and Germany, and the Chinese explorer Wang Dayuan explored the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea in the second century BCE. More recently, explorers have voyaged to the moon and outer space. Before the late seventeenth century, this kind of adventurer was called an exploratour, from the Latin root explorare, "examine or investigate."

Example Sentences

Critics on the Croisette are starting to resemble that classic comic-strip panel in which an explorer crawls desperately across the sand toward an oasis that’s only a mirage.

From Los Angeles Times • May 19, 2026

Gael García Bernal stars in the director’s epic—full of beautiful, often static imagery—about the Portuguese explorer, now streaming on the Criterion Channel.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 23, 2026

Her background is particularly eclectic: an engineer by training, she is a seasoned explorer who has worked in extreme environments including Antarctica.

From Barron's • Mar. 25, 2026

"Most people have this image of an intrepid explorer braving an isolated mountain or some other remote place, and stumbling across a creature that no one has ever seen before," Chan said.

From Science Daily • Mar. 9, 2026

She was an explorer, an intrepid follower of her own heart.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama