Meaning & use
visitor
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
Someone who goes to see a person, or comes to a place for a short stay, such as a guest or tourist.
Grammar: Followed by to or from: a visitor to the museum, a visitor from Spain.
Patterns
- a visitor to somewhere
- a visitor from somewhere
- a visitor at somewhere
We have a visitor coming for dinner tonight.
The island welcomes thousands of visitors every summer.
Visitors must sign in at the front desk.
nouncountablecomputing
A person or website user who opens a website or page, counted in measures of traffic.
Grammar: Often appears in numbers: unique visitors.
Patterns
- visitors to something
The site gets about ten thousand visitors a day.
New visitors are shown a short welcome message.
Most visitors leave the page within a few seconds.
nouncountable
An animal, usually a bird, that stays in a place for only part of the year.
Grammar: Often with summer or winter: a winter visitor.
Patterns
- a summer visitor
- a winter visitor
The swallow is a summer visitor to Britain.
Redwings are winter visitors that feed on berries.
The garden gets a rare visitor, a hummingbird, each spring.
Word forms
| plural | visitors |
|---|
Common combinations
- a regular visitor
- She is a regular visitor at the care home.
- tourist visitor
- The old castle attracts many tourist visitors.
- visitor center
- Ask for a map at the visitor center.
- visitor's pass
- Please wear your visitor's pass at all times.
- unexpected visitor
- An unexpected visitor knocked at the door at midnight.
- welcome a visitor
- The villagers welcomed each visitor with fresh bread.
Synonyms and how they differ
- guest
- A guest is invited by a host and often stays at someone's home or an event, while visitor can include people who simply come to look.
- tourist
- A tourist is specifically traveling for pleasure, whereas a visitor may come for work, family or any reason.
- caller
- Caller is old-fashioned for someone dropping in briefly, or means a phone caller today, and is narrower than visitor.
- newcomer
- A newcomer has recently arrived and may stay, while a visitor is only there temporarily.
Opposites
Word family
- visit verb
- to go to see a person or place
- visit noun
- a short stay or trip to see someone
- visiting adjective
- coming from elsewhere, as in the visiting team
- visitation noun
- an official visit, or the right to see someone such as a child
Commonly confused: visitor or visiter?
visitor vs visiter
This is an incorrect spelling; the correct spelling is visitor.
Practice
Which person is best described as a visitor?
Choose one answer.
A visitor is someone present only temporarily, like a hotel guest for two nights. The others live or work in the town permanently.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “visitor”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.