Meaning & use
colonist
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Meanings
nouncountable
A person who goes to live in a new land that is claimed or ruled by their home country.
Grammar: Countable: early colonists, a colonist family.
Patterns
- colonists from a country
- colonists in a place
Colonists from England founded Jamestown in 1607.
The colonists struggled through their first harsh winter.
Many colonists brought seeds and tools with them.
nouncountable
A person who lives in a colony, especially one under foreign rule, as distinct from the Native people already there.
Grammar: Often used in history, sometimes with a critical tone about displacing others.
Patterns
- colonists and Indigenous peoples
Colonists and local peoples sometimes clashed over land.
The colonists complained about taxes set by a distant parliament.
nouncountablebiologytechnical
An animal or plant that moves into and spreads in a new area.
Grammar: A biology term, often used in the plural.
Patterns
- a colonist species
Grasses were the first colonists on the bare volcanic soil.
The beetle is a successful colonist of newly cleared woodland.
Word forms
| plural | colonists |
|---|
Common combinations
- early colonists
- The early colonists planted corn and beans.
- colonists arrive
- The colonists arrived in spring with three ships.
- British colonists
- British colonists settled much of the Atlantic coast.
- colonist settlement
- The colonist settlement grew into a trading town.
- future colonists
- Future colonists on Mars would need a steady supply of water.
Synonyms and how they differ
- settler
- Settler is broader and can describe anyone who makes a home in new land, without suggesting that a state controls it.
- pioneer
- Pioneer emphasizes being among the first to explore and develop an area, and often has a heroic tone.
- colonizer
- Colonizer stresses the act of taking control of a land, and is often used critically.
- immigrant
- An immigrant moves into an already established country, whereas a colonist helps to found or expand a colony.
Opposites
Word family
- colony noun
- a territory controlled by another country, or a group of animals living together
- colonize verb
- to establish a colony in a place
- colonial adjective
- relating to a colony or colonialism
- colonization noun
- the process of setting up colonies
- colonialism noun
- control of other lands for the benefit of a ruling country
Commonly confused: colonist or colonel? colonist or colonialist?
colonist vs colonel
A colonel is an army officer, pronounced like kernel, and is unrelated to colonists.
colonist vs colonialist
A colonialist supports or practices colonialism, while a colonist is just someone who settles a colony.
Practice
The people who left Europe to build villages in the new colony were called ___.
Choose one answer.
Colonists live in or found colonies. Colonels are officers, and columnists write newspaper columns.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “colonist”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.