Synonyms of colonists

colonists

noun

plural of colonist

as in settlers

a person who settles in a new region

over time the colonists began to sense that they were becoming a people unto themselves

Synonyms & Similar Words

• settlers
• pioneers
• colonizers
• colonials
• frontiersmen
• homesteaders
• explorers
• pathfinders
• woodsmen
• mountain men
• bushrangers
• trailblazers

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of colonists

The animals reached Spain during the Roman Empire and were later brought to what is now Mexico by Spanish colonists in the 1500s. — Clara Harter, Los Angeles Times, 6 Oct. 2026

The contest for our land came to be between the British crown and the colonists. — J. B. MacKinnon, Harpers Magazine, 29 Sep. 2026

The English lacked a body of laws specific to slavery; their colonists adapted. — Jill Lepore, New Yorker, 21 Sep. 2026

Before the American Revolution, white American colonists enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the Western world. — Sandra Slater, The Conversation, 21 Sep. 2026

Iroquois envoys regularly visited colonists, both to size up their ambitious rivals and to give advice on how to survive on an American continent where Native American culture dominated. — Scott Baldauf, Christian Science Monitor, 17 Sep. 2026

Japan regained sovereignty over the island in the 1970s, but the American military still has a heavy presence there, continuing tensions between locals and the armed colonists surrounding them. — Richard Lawson, HollywoodReporter, 9 Sep. 2026

What happened to the colonists remains unknown, but archaeological finds—including otherwise anachronistic English artifacts on Hatteras Island—give some support to White’s theory that at least some of the colonists relocated willingly. — Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Aug. 2026

Between 1824 and 1831, British colonists committed mass atrocities against and forced displacement of the island’s Aboriginal tribes. — Adam Erace, Travel + Leisure, 4 Aug. 2026