noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of settler
Explanation
A settler is a person who moves to a new place with the intention to stay there. Colonial America was built by settlers who came mainly from England. Settlers often think of themselves as being the first people to live in an area, although through history settlers moved to places already inhabited by native people. A settler's primary goal is to set up a home — claim land, build houses, and establish new towns with other settlers. The noun settler originally meant "thing that settles," though by the 1690s it was used to mean "person moving to a new country," from the Old English word setlan, "cause to place."
Vocabulary lists containing settler
The United States
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Canada - Introductory
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Canada - Middle School and High School
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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.
See Examples For:
Israeli police said Monday they had arrested 10 people in the occupied West Bank after settler attacks on an American photographer and a French mayor that drew international condemnation but mixed messages from the government.
From Barron's ● Oct. 19, 2026
Israel Gantz, head of an umbrella settler group, blamed recent incidents on "groups of provocateurs and terrorists" but implicitly acknowledged some Israelis' responsibility.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026
The United Nations humanitarian office, which monitors the attacks, says reports of settler violence have risen every year over the past decade, and spiked sharply after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
However, the report's author, Jessica Stober, suggests that a UK ban on settler goods would greatly increase the financial costs associated with any such fraudulent practices.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
During the first three decades after the Treaty of Paris was signed, allied Indigenous nations in the Ohio Country and the southern states were involved in several struggles to resist settler encroachment.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
An Israeli army captain finally defused the standoff, but the Palestinians never reached their property and the settlers appeared to suffer no consequences.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2026
Some Palestinians set off fireworks to try and push the settlers back.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
In the 1770s, Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza led an expedition of settlers into what would later become California, bringing donkeys and horses with him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
The settlers walked between Ganim and Kadim, settlements that are powerful symbols for their movement.
From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026
But the process of acculturation was accelerating as settlers began to move onto the reservation.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
