Meaning & use
conquistador
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Meaning
nouncountable
One of the Spanish or Portuguese soldiers and adventurers who took control of large parts of Central and South America in the 1500s.
Grammar: Countable noun that takes a/the: a conquistador. Plural is conquistadors or conquistadores.
Patterns
- a Spanish conquistador
- the conquistadors of something
Hernán Cortés is the best-known conquistador who defeated the Aztec Empire.
Conquistadors often traveled with priests and a small number of horses.
The museum has the armor of a sixteenth-century conquistador.
Word forms
| plural | conquistadors |
|---|---|
| plural (Spanish) | conquistadores |
Common combinations
- Spanish conquistador
- A Spanish conquistador led the expedition across the mountains.
- conquistador helmet
- A rusted conquistador helmet was found near the coast.
- the age of the conquistadors
- The age of the conquistadors brought great suffering to the Indigenous peoples.
- conquistadors' expedition
- The conquistadors' expedition searched for gold in the jungle.
- ruthless conquistador
- The ruthless conquistador burned the villages he passed.
Synonyms and how they differ
- conqueror
- Conqueror is the general word for anyone who wins land by force, while conquistador refers to the Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas.
- colonizer
- A colonizer settles and governs a territory, which can involve peace, whereas a conquistador is a military figure.
- invader
- Invader is more negative and not limited to any historical period.
Word family
Commonly confused: conquistador or toreador?
conquistador vs toreador
A toreador is a bullfighter. It sounds similar to conquistador because both are Spanish borrowings ending in -dor, but they mean different things.
Practice
Which person would most likely be called a conquistador?
Choose one answer.
Conquistadors were Spanish soldier-explorers in the 1500s. The Roman emperor and the pilgrim belong to other periods and places, and a chef is unrelated.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “conquistador”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.