visitor
Americannoun
noun
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a person who pays a visit; caller, guest, tourist, etc
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another name for visitant
Related Words
Visitor, caller, guest, visitant are terms for a person who comes to spend time with or stay with others, or in a place. A visitor often stays some time, for social pleasure, for business, sightseeing, etc.: a visitor at our neighbor's house. A caller comes for a brief (usually) formal visit: The caller merely left her card. A guest is anyone receiving hospitality, and the word has been extended to include anyone who pays for meals and lodging: a welcome guest; a hotel guest. Visitant applies especially to a migratory bird or to a supernatural being: a warbler as a visitant.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of visitor
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English visitour, from Anglo-French; Old French visiteor, from Late Latin vīsitātor, equivalent to Latin vīsitā(re) “to go to see, visit” ( see visit) + -tor -tor
Explanation
A visitor is someone who is in a place temporarily. If you spend a week on an island during the summer, you're a visitor there, unlike the people who live on the island year-round. When you visit someone, you're a visitor in their home, and if someone visits your school, whether to put on a puppet show or a book fair or a presentation about safety, they're a visitor too. It's also common to refer to an opposing sports team as visitors when they come to play on your team's home turf — but when your team travels for an away game, you're the visitors.
Vocabulary lists containing visitor
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.
Destinations may implement “overtourism demand control” with visitor caps and timestamped reservations to manage crowds.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 15, 2026
This was another contest that would have fried the brain of every visitor.
From BBC • May 9, 2026
AFP saw one visitor, Oksana, navigating the capital using a screenshot of a map she had taken.
From Barron's • May 9, 2026
The object, known as 3I/ATLAS, is only the third confirmed interstellar visitor ever detected, and scientists are now uncovering clues about the alien environment where it formed.
From Science Daily • May 8, 2026
On Sunday, the man had come to the Louvre just like any other visitor, but when the museum was closing, he didn’t do what the other visitors did.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
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.
