ADVENTURER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does adventurer mean? 

• ADVENTURER (noun)
  The noun ADVENTURER has 2 senses:

1. a person who enjoys taking risks

2. someone who travels into little known regions (especially for some scientific purpose)

  Familiarity information: ADVENTURER used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ADVENTURER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who enjoys taking risks

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

adventurer; venturer

Hypernyms ("adventurer" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "adventurer"):

adventuress (a woman adventurer)

cowboy (someone who is reckless or irresponsible (especially in driving vehicles))

daredevil; harum-scarum; hothead; lunatic; madcap; swashbuckler (a reckless impetuous irresponsible person)

gambler; risk taker (someone who risks loss or injury in the hope of gain or excitement)

hotspur (a rash or impetuous person)

mercenary; soldier of fortune (a person hired to fight for another country than their own)

mountain climber; mountaineer (someone who climbs mountains)

plunger; speculator (someone who risks losses for the possibility of considerable gains)

argonaut (someone engaged in a dangerous but potentially rewarding adventure)

Instance hyponyms:

Casanova; Casanova de Seingalt; Giovanni Jacopo Casanova; Giovanni Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt (an Italian adventurer who wrote vivid accounts of his sexual encounters (1725-1798))

Derivation:

adventure (a wild and exciting undertaking (not necessarily lawful))

adventure (take a risk in the hope of a favorable outcome)

adventure (put at risk)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Someone who travels into little known regions (especially for some scientific purpose)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

adventurer; explorer

Hypernyms ("adventurer" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "adventurer"):

diver; frogman; underwater diver (someone who works underwater)

potholer; spelaeologist; speleologist; spelunker (a person who explores caves)

navigator (in earlier times, a person who explored by ship)

conquistador (an adventurer (especially one who led the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Peru in the 16th century))

Instance hyponyms:

David Livingstone; Livingstone (Scottish missionary and explorer who discovered the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls (1813-1873))

George Hubert Wilkins; Wilkins (Australian who was the first to explore the Arctic by airplane (1888-1958))

Mackenzie; Sir Alexander Mackenzie (Canadian explorer (born in England) who explored the Mackenzie River and who was first to cross North America by land north of Mexico (1764-1820))

Fridtjof Nansen; Nansen (Norwegian explorer of the Arctic and director of the League of Nations relief program for refugees of World War I (1861-1930))

Mungo Park; Park (Scottish explorer in Africa (1771-1806))

Peary; Robert E. Peary; Robert Edwin Peary; Robert Peary (United States Arctic explorer and United States naval officer who has been regarded as the first man to reach the North Pole (1856-1920))

Kund Johan Victor Rasmussen; Rasmussen (Danish ethnologist and Arctic explorer; led expeditions into the Arctic to find support for his theory that Eskimos and North American Indians originally migrated from Asia (1879-1933))

James Clark Ross; Ross; Sir James Clark Ross (British explorer of the Arctic and Antarctic; located the north magnetic pole in 1831; discovered the Ross Sea in Antarctica; nephew of Sir John Ross (1800-1862))

John Ross; Ross; Sir John Ross (Scottish explorer who led Arctic expeditions that yielded geographic discoveries while searching for the Northwest Passage (1777-1856))

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft; Schoolcraft (United States geologist and ethnologist and explorer who discovered the source of the Mississippi River (1793-1864))

Robert Falcon Scott; Robert Scott; Scott (English explorer who reached the South Pole just a month after Amundsen; he and his party died on the return journey (1868-1912))

Captain John Smith; John Smith; Smith (English explorer who helped found the colony at Jamestown, Virginia; was said to have been saved by Pocahontas (1580-1631))

John Hanning Speke; John Speke; Speke (English explorer who with Sir Richard Burton was the first European to explore Lake Tanganyika; he also discovered Lake Victoria and named it (1827-1864))

Henry M. Stanley; John Rowlands; Sir Henry Morton Stanley; Stanley (Welsh journalist and explorer who led an expedition to Africa in search of David Livingstone and found him in Tanzania in 1871; he and Livingstone together tried to find the source of the Nile River (1841-1904))

Otto Neumann Sverdrup; Sverdrup (Norwegian explorer who led expeditions into the Arctic (1855-1930))

Sebastian Vizcaino; Vizcaino (Spanish explorer who was the first European to explore the California coast (1550-1615))

Charles Wilkes; Wilkes (United States explorer of Antarctica (1798-1877))

Cordoba; Cordova; Francisco Fernandez Cordoba; Francisco Fernandez de Cordova (Spanish explorer who discovered Yucatan (1475-1526))

Amundsen; Roald Amundsen (Norwegian explorer who was the first to traverse the Northwest Passage and in 1911 the first to reach the South Pole (1872-1928))

Bartlett; Captain Bob; Robert Abram Bartlett; Robert Bartlett (United States explorer who accompanied Peary's expedition to the North Pole and who led many other Arctic trips (1875-1946))

Bougainville; Louis Antoine de Bougainville (French explorer who circumnavigated the globe accompanied by scientists (1729-1811))

Burton; Richard Burton; Sir Richard Burton; Sir Richard Francis Burton (English explorer who with John Speke was the first European to explore Lake Tanganyika (1821-1890))

Admiral Byrd; Byrd; Richard E. Byrd; Richard Evelyn Byrd (explorer and United States naval officer; led expeditions to explore Antarctica (1888-1957))

Cabot; Sebastian Cabot (son of John Cabot who was born in Italy and who led an English expedition in search of the Northwest Passage and a Spanish expedition that explored the La Plata region of Brazil; in 1544 he published a map of the world (1476-1557))

Champlain; Samuel de Champlain (French explorer in Nova Scotia who established a settlement on the site of modern Quebec (1567-1635))

Clark; William Clark (United States explorer who (with Meriwether Lewis) led an expedition from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River; Clark was responsible for making maps of the area (1770-1838))

Lewis; Meriwether Lewis (United States explorer and soldier who lead led an expedition from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River (1774-1809))

Cousteau; Jacques Costeau; Jacques Yves Costeau (French underwater explorer (born in 1910))

Flinders; Matthew Flinders; Sir Matthew Flinders (British explorer who mapped the Australian coast (1774-1814))

Fremont; John C. Fremont; John Charles Fremont (United States explorer who mapped much of the American west and Northwest (1813-1890))

Frobisher; Sir Martin Frobisher (English explorer who led an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage to the orient; served under Drake and helped defeat the Spanish Armada (1535-1594))

Charles Francis Hall; Hall (United States explorer who led three expeditions to the Arctic (1821-1871))

Joliet; Jolliet; Louis Joliet; Louis Jolliet (French explorer (with Jacques Marquette) of the upper Mississippi River valley (1645-1700))

LaSalle; Rene-Robert Cavelier; Sieur de LaSalle (French explorer who claimed Louisiana for France (1643-1687))

Derivation:

adventure (a wild and exciting undertaking (not necessarily lawful))

adventure (take a risk in the hope of a favorable outcome)

 Context examples 

For a moment I had a vision of four adventurers floating like a string of sausages over the land that they had explored.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was the fad of the hour, the adventurer who had stormed Parnassus while the gods nodded.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

As the English adventurers, peeping out from behind their brushwood screen, looked down upon this wondrous sight they could see that the vast army in front of them was already afoot.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He soon made ducks and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, married another woman, I believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Wild adventurers they were, forayers and destroyers from the far lands beyond the Sea of Bering, who blasted the new and unknown world with fire and sword and clutched greedily for its wealth of fur and hide.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

A crowd of white-faced sewers and pages swarmed at their heels, those behind pushing forwards, while the foremost shrank back from the fierce faces and reeking weapons of the adventurers.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A roar of acclamation greeted the four adventurers as they appeared, high above the heads of the people, under the vivid electric lamps outside the hall.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And and ing, with the d and g pronounced emphatically, he went over thousands of times; and to his surprise he noticed that he was beginning to speak cleaner and more correct English than the officers themselves and the gentleman-adventurers in the cabin who had financed the expedition.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)