wildcatter
Americannoun
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an oil prospector.
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a person who promotes risky or unsound business ventures.
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a person who participates in a wildcat strike.
noun
Etymology
Origin of wildcatter
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.
Presidio differs from most small-cap energy companies, which tend to have a wildcatter mentality—drill somewhere new and try to hit the big one.
From Barron's ● Mar. 5, 2026
To get ahead in the next cycle, they may need to bring back some of that wildcatter spirit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
“That wildcatter ethos” — marked by willingness to invest millions of dollars in projects with uncertain outcomes — “is exactly what’s needed,” Cranberg said.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 14, 2026
Endeavor, founded by the billionaire wildcatter Autry Stephens, had become the subject of takeover speculation in oil circles over the past several months.
From New York Times ● Feb. 12, 2024
One damp spring day in 1917, Frank Phillips—a wildcatter who’d previously sold a tonic to prevent baldness—was out with his workers on Lot 185, less than half a mile from Lot 50.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
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.
