voyageur
Americannoun
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voyageurs
plural
noun
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history a boatman employed by one of the early fur-trading companies, esp in the interior
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a woodsman, guide, trapper, boatman, or explorer, esp in the North
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of voyageur
1785–95; < French: traveler, equivalent to voyag ( er ) to travel (derivative of voyage journey; see voyage) + -eur -eur
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:
The murals depict a voyageur, a steamboat captain, a railroad surveyor and a laborer, all of them white.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 28, 2018
They joined a six-person team that won the voyageur canoe category in the 444-mile Yukon River Quest endurance race last summer.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 6, 2014
Together, we hatched a big, burly, river trip in the voyageur style.
From Time Magazine Archive
He and his voyageur crew had just dragged their sled of furs across from the mainland, and were staying for the night.
From "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich
I don't like to repeat gossip, but—They say that, long ago, when her mother lived upon a little farm by the river, there came along a dashing voyageur, from France, who loved her.
From Abroad at Home American Ramblings, Observations, and Adventures of Julian Street by Julian Street
Together they bill themselves as “authentic Quebec,” home to 16th-century French settlements and rivers that were the original highways used by First Nations travelers and, later, French Canadian fur traders known as voyageurs.
From New York Times ● Jan. 13, 2020
We sat by the fire that night listening to more stories about the Boundary Waters and the French voyageurs who opened them to the world in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2016
"I don't know about the voyageurs," he said.
From US News ● Jun. 24, 2016
The story lingers admiringly with such illustrious voyageurs as Leif the Viking, Marco Polo, Diaz and Vasco da Gama, Columbus and Magellan, Livingstone and Stanley.
From Time Magazine Archive
Omakayas’s father, Mikwam, wasn’t with these voyageurs, but Mama hoped that they might have news of him.
From "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich
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.
