saboteur
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of saboteur
1920–25; < French, equivalent to sabot ( er ) to botch ( see sabotage) + -eur -eur
Explanation
A saboteur is a person who makes a mess of a situation on purpose. You might call your little brother a saboteur for letting the air out of your bicycle tires, but you could be a saboteur in return by filling his shoes with cold spaghetti. Saboteur is a noun that is fairly new to the English language; it was first used in the early 1900s, and it refers to a person who deliberately destroys or obstructs something. It comes from the French word, saboter, which really and truly means to kick something with an old-fashioned wooden shoe. We can only hope that one day the word Nikeur might enter the English language to mean a person who kicks something with a sneaker.
Vocabulary lists containing saboteur
Farewell to Manzanar
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National Spelling Bee '14: Prelims Round 2
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They Called Us Enemy
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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.
But they also assume anyone who disagrees with them is incompetent, delusional or even a saboteur, so they reject their opinions and ideas out of hand.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 19, 2025
But, like a slinky saboteur, RNA from that same hub may wind its way to all the other hubs.
From Science Daily • Dec. 21, 2023
In other fighting, Ukraine said it had thwarted an attempt overnight by a Russian eight-member saboteur group to cross its northeastern border in the Sumy region.
From Reuters • Oct. 12, 2023
Hidden in plain sight was a third-grade saboteur on a mission.
From Washington Post • May 22, 2022
Back at Duluth Airport, soldiers searched for the saboteur.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
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.
