COLONIZER Definition & Meaning

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colonizer

[ kol-uh-nahy-zer ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

1. a nation or government that claims a territory other than its own, forcibly taking control over the population and resources located in that territory and usually sending some of its own people to settle there:
  In the past, whole continents have been appropriated by colonizers such as Britain, Spain, France, and Portugal.
2. any of the settlers who come from such a nation to live in or help control the territory their government has claimed:
  The Red River was the scene of a major historic battle between European colonizers and Canada’s Indigenous people.
3. Often Disparaging and Offensive. a descendant of any of these settlers, or any person belonging to their culture and enjoying the advantages of the power structure set up by the colonizing nation.
a person who is among the first to settle in an area:
The initial colonizers of the Arctic were thought to have descended from inhabitants of the forested south.
Biology. a species of plant or animal that moves or is transported to a new habitat and seeks to establish itself there:
Ecologists are interested in why some species are successful colonizers while others are not.
Microbiology, Medicine/Medical. a microbe that multiplies in or on another organism, especially one that does so without causing disease or infection, such as certain bacteria in the gut or on the skin of humans.

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�y��vlog History and Origins

Origin of colonizer¹

First recorded in 1720–30; colonize ( def ) + -er ¹( def )

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

It’s as if he’s claiming nature’s untrampled territory with his reverential gaze — a distinctly political act for a colonizer.

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The Spanish colonizers suppressed this intentional annual brush burning, claiming it was incompatible with agriculture.

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“The presence of terrestrial microorganism within a sample of Ryugu underlines that microorganisms are the world's greatest colonizers and adept at circumventing contamination controls,” the authors conclude.

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Even this process occurs on the colonizer’s terms.

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Some, like beans, calabaza, cassava, cornmeal and scotch bonnet peppers, are indigenous to the islands and were being processed and consumed by the people living there when the colonizers arrived.

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