motorist
Americannoun
-
motorists
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of motorist
Explanation
Motorist is another word for "driver." Motorists need to be aware of pedestrians and stay out of bike lanes. It's especially common to find the word motorists in news stories when they're talking about drivers as a collective group, like all the motorists in downtown Chicago or rural motorists on two-lane highways. Motorist first appeared in the late 19th century, around the time the earliest automobiles did, meaning "motor car driver." An alternative term that quickly became obsolete was motorneer.
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.
See Examples For:
Salazar was identified after a motorist contacted police to report another driver who had aggressively confronted him minutes before Clinkunbroomer’s death, according to evidence presented at a prior hearing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026
Events keep drifting like a lost motorist who starts out on the interstate and takes a series of wrong turns until he’s on a one-lane dirt road, getting mooed at.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
My car was nearly 20 years old, and I only carried liability and uninsured motorist coverage, not collision.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 3, 2026
And in Vologda, Nikolai, a motorist who declined to give his surname, said "more stations have started working again, and petrol deliveries have become more frequent. Naturally, the queues have shrunk".
From Barron's ● Jul. 18, 2026
Once Cheryl reached the highway, a motorist spotted her and took her to the hospital.
From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers
Streets on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach were flooded with at least a foot of water during high tides, with police advising residents and motorists to avoid the area.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026
Google Maps will now show fuel prices to help motorists find cheaper petrol and diesel in the UK as costs continue to soar.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
Data from the UK's Department for Transport shows that motorists in Northern Ireland are more reliant on diesel than those in other parts of the UK.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
You’ve probably seen the dramatic photos of motorists stuck after their cars stalled in floodwater.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
If we were driving somewhere, motorists along the highway would wave to Malcolm X, the faces of both whites and Negroes spontaneously aglow with the wonderment that I had seen evoked by other “celebrities.”
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
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.
