COLONIST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does colonist mean? 

• COLONIST (noun)
  The noun COLONIST has 1 sense:

1. a person who settles in a new colony or moves into new country

  Familiarity information: COLONIST used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COLONIST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who settles in a new colony or moves into new country

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

colonist; settler

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

migrant; migrator (traveler who moves from one region or country to another)

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

Pilgrim; Pilgrim Father (one of the colonists from England who sailed to America on the Mayflower and founded the colony of Plymouth in New England in 1620)

pioneer (one of the first colonists or settlers in a new territory)

sourdough (a settler or prospector (especially in western United States or northwest Canada and Alaska))

homesteader; nester; squatter (someone who settles lawfully on government land with the intent to acquire title to it)

Instance hyponyms:

Endecott; Endicott; John Endecott; John Endicott (born in England; in 1629 he became the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1588-1665))

Anne Hutchinson; Hutchinson (American colonist (born in England) who was banished from Boston for her religious views (1591-1643))

Minnewit; Minuit; Peter Minnewit; Peter Minuit (Dutch colonist who bought Manhattan from the Native Americans for the equivalent of $24 (1580-1638))

Miles Standish; Myles Standish; Standish (English colonist in America; leader of the Pilgrims in the early days of the Plymouth Colony (1584-1656))

Roger Williams; Williams (English clergyman and colonist who was expelled from Massachusetts for criticizing Puritanism; he founded Providence in 1636 and obtained a royal charter for Rhode Island in 1663 (1603-1683))

Edward Winslow; Winslow (English colonial administrator who traveled to America on the Mayflower and served as the first governor of the Plymouth Colony (1595-1655))

Derivation:

colony (a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government)

colony (a geographical area politically controlled by a distant country)

Colony (one of the 13 British colonies that formed the original states of the United States)

 Context examples 

Beyond its foaming base lay the pretty villages of the Japanese colonists and smiling valleys which penetrated deep into the interior.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Mr. Peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where I read aloud as follows, from the Port Middlebay Times: The public dinner to our distinguished fellow-colonist and townsman, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, Port Middlebay District Magistrate, came off yesterday in the large room of the Hotel, which was crowded to suffocation.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)