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• pioneer
  pioneer

  noun

  a person who is among those who first enter or settle a region, thus opening it for occupation and development by others.
• Pioneer
  Pioneer

  noun

  a total abstainer from alcoholic drink, esp a member of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, a society devoted to abstention

pioneer

American  

[pahy-uh-neer] / ˌpaɪ əˈnɪər /

noun

• pioneers
  plural

1. 

   a person who is among those who first enter or settle a region, thus opening it for occupation and development by others.

2. a person, group, or thing that is first or among the earliest in any field of inquiry, enterprise, or development.

   a woman who was a pioneer in cancer research;

   vehicles that were pioneers of automotive engineering.

   Synonyms:

   innovator, groundbreaker, trailblazer, leader

3. one of a group of foot soldiers detailed to make roads, dig intrenchments, etc., in advance of the main body.

4. Ecology. an organism that successfully establishes itself in a barren area, thus starting an ecological cycle of life.

5. Aerospace. Pioneer, one of a series of U.S. space probes that explored the solar system and transmitted scientific information to earth.

6. Pioneer, (formerly) a member of a Communist organization in the Soviet Union for children ranging in age from 10 to 16.

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verb (used without object)

• pioneers,
  present (3rd person singular)
• pioneered,
  past participle,  past
• pioneering
  present participle

1. to act as a pioneer.

verb (used with object)

• pioneers,
  present (3rd person singular)
• pioneered,
  past participle,  past
• pioneering
  present participle

1. to be the first to open or prepare (a way, settlement, etc.).

2. to take part in the beginnings of; initiate.

   to pioneer an aid program.

3. to lead the way for (a group); trailblaze.

adjective

1. being the earliest, original, first of a particular kind, etc..

   a pioneer method of adult education.

2. of, relating to, or characteristic of pioneers.

   pioneer justice.

3. being a pioneer.

   a pioneer fur trader.

pioneer ¹ British  

/ ˌpaɪəˈnɪə /

noun

1. 1. a colonist, explorer, or settler of a new land, region, etc

   2. ( as modifier )

      a pioneer wagon

2. an innovator or developer of something new

3. military a member of an infantry group that digs entrenchments, makes roads, etc

4. ecology the first species of plant or animal to colonize an area of bare ground

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verb

1. to be a pioneer (in or of)

2. (tr) to initiate, prepare, or open up

   to pioneer a medical programme

Pioneer ² British  

/ ˌpaɪəˈnɪə /

noun

1. a total abstainer from alcoholic drink, esp a member of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, a society devoted to abstention

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Pioneer ³ British  

/ ˌpaɪəˈnɪə /

noun

1. any of a series of US spacecraft that studied the solar system, esp Pioneer 10, which made the first flyby of Jupiter (1973), and Pioneer 11, which made the first flyby of Saturn (1979)

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• pioneers
  plural

Participles

• pioneering
  present
• pioneered
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• pioneer
  simple
• pioneers
  simple
• have pioneered
  perfect
• has pioneered
  perfect
• am pioneering
  progressive
• are pioneering
  progressive
• is pioneering
  progressive
• have been pioneering
  perfect progressive
• has been pioneering
  perfect progressive

Past

• pioneered
  simple
• had pioneered
  perfect
• was pioneering
  progressive
• were pioneering
  progressive
• had been pioneering
  perfect progressive

Future

• will pioneer
  simple
• will have pioneered
  perfect
• will be pioneering
  progressive
• will have been pioneering
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of pioneer

First recorded in 1515–25; from Middle French pionier, Old French peonier “foot soldier”; see origin at peon ¹, -eer

Explanation

A pioneer is one of the first settlers in a new place. If you desperately want to experience life in space, maybe you will be one of the pioneers who live in the first moon settlement. Pioneer comes from the old French for foot soldier or laborer, and particularly for groups of soldiers that would go out ahead of the rest of the troops to prepare the way. The European settlers who came to America in the 16th century are known as pioneers, as are the later groups who traveled West in the 18th and 19th centuries. We also use pioneer for anyone who takes initiative in a field, such as science or education.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pioneer Pioneer pioneers pioneered pioneering

The American pioneer vanished while attempting to circumnavigate the globe in 1937, spawning decades of speculation on her fate.

From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026

Maniscalco is an incredible businessman, and a pioneer in the craft of shouting a premise and then pausing until the audience agrees it’s a punchline.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026

The cable-television pioneer, who died in May at 87, demonstrated that the surest way to save an American icon was to give people a stake in it.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

"The first impression was, well, I thought it was completely irrelevant," says Diamos, a pioneer in harnessing Nvidia's powerful GPU chips for AI.

From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026

And his shoes were something out of a social studies project on the pioneer days.

From "Schooled" by Gordon Korman

Pioneer bought additional tooling and experimented with changes in temperature and curing times to better understand and fix the problem.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026

Gabriel Florenz, founding artistic and executive director of the Brooklyn cultural center Pioneer Works, considers Wolfe’s holdings the most important collection of Ghanaian fantasy coffins in the world.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026

"It appears the BoJ will pull the trigger and hike in September but then open the door to a potential pick up in the pace of hiking," Paresh Upadhyaya at Pioneer Investments said.

From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026

Iran did not acknowledge being responsible, but shipping analysts have said it was likely to have been behind the Minoan Pioneer attack on 3 August.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

He wanted to see how the game was taught and played at the state-supported Pioneer Palaces.

From "Endgame" by Frank Brady

These new pioneers coax the landscape into fertile framing, helping to feed hungry populations.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026

The grocer was founded in 1966 by Japanese immigrants Michio and Aveline Kushi — pioneers of the natural-foods macrobiotic movement who began selling imported organic goods out of their Boston home.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026

Green Gallery included one of these pieces, an armchair called “Accumulation No. 1,” in a group show in June 1962 alongside Pop pioneers such as Oldenburg.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

Wing or centre, a wonderful finisher and a player whose innate talents were honed on those tough streets of his district - one that also produced fellow pioneers Roy Francis and Colin Dixon.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

There was Syn- Optics Communications, which was among the pioneers in creating technology to allow for faster, more efficient delivery of data over Ethernet lines.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel

The advanced method is known as ancestral sequence reconstruction, which was pioneered by Joseph Thornton, a former UO scientist whose old laboratory space is now occupied by Barber's group.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026

But remember that before Oppenheimer tossed us into the nuclear age, he pioneered modern theoretical physics in the United States.

From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026

The theft-prone models lack a critical safeguard called an engine immobilizer pioneered in the mid-1980s, when more than 60,000 cars a year were stolen in Los Angeles alone.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2026

Mastro pioneered civil racketeering cases that targeted mobbed-up unions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026

He believed the Rad Lab was destined to face inevitable decline as physics progressed and competitive laboratories emerged—many of them built on the model Lawrence had pioneered.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

"This is the pioneering study showing that polyethylene can contribute to fatty liver disease and the use of spatial transcriptomics has determined exactly where the damage has happened within the liver," Joshi said.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2026

At the Pyry Conference near Warsaw in 1939, Polish cryptologists invited French and British counterparts, including Alastair Denniston and Dilly Knox, to share their pioneering success in breaking the German Enigma machine cipher.

From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026

A teenager has revealed how her life has been transformed thanks to pioneering gene editing, which reversed symptoms of a crippling blood disorder.

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

Another name often cited among commentators is Taiwanese-American biochemist Chi-Huey Wong for pioneering synthesis methods for complex carbohydrates and glycoproteins.

From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026

Let us follow in the footsteps of these pioneering missions, and visit another world.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan