prospector
Britishnoun
Explanation
A prospector is someone looking for mineral deposits. Prospectors are usually after gold. A prospector is a type of explorer, but one with a specific purpose: prospectors are after mineral deposits. Mineral deposits are found in the ground, so prospectors will commonly be looking down. They also use various tools—such as axes and metal detectors—to find the minerals they're after. Since gold is the most valuable mineral, it's long been the number one priority of prospectors. A prospector who finds gold could become rich.
Vocabulary lists containing prospector
Gold Rush: Mining and Metals
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In A Sedimental Mood: Rock and Gem Vocabulary
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Stargirl
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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.
The prospector with his pan and pickax gave way to powerful water cannons that blasted away gold-bearing hillsides, leaving behind incoherent geological arabesques that will likely outlast the pyramids.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Picking individual gold or silver miners is like betting on which prospector will find the nugget.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 19, 2025
"People would go in as a prospector, to flip bottles for two to three times the value."
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2025
Years later, the Azusa Herald quoted an old codger of a prospector — aren’t they all codgers? — that the Eldoradoville inundation “never stopped until it brought up in San Pedro Harbor.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 11, 2025
When we left, he said, he was going to head out into the desert on his own, to become a prospector.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
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.
