Conquistador

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kənˈkistədɔɹ/

Definitions

1. A Spanish or Portuguese soldier or adventurer who participated in the conquest and colonization of territories in the Americas during the 15th and 16th centuries
2. A military leader from Spain or Portugal who conquered and colonized territories in the Americas during the 15th-16th centuries
3. An armed explorer from the Iberian Peninsula engaged in subjugating indigenous populations and establishing colonial rule across the New World

Etymology: Spanish "conquistador" is built from "conquistar", "to conquer", plus the agent suffix "-dor", which marks the person who performs the action. Its ancestry runs back through Latin "-tor", the same ending found in words like "actor" and "creator", and that ending traces to a much older Indo-European form. In other words, the word simply names someone who conquers. English borrowed the term directly from Spanish, and it took on a specific historical sense: the soldiers who led Spain's campaigns of conquest in the Americas. Because those expeditions were so famous, the word came to evoke a particular kind of figure, the bold adventurer who overran a foreign land by force.

Synonyms: conqueror, invader