Thesaurus results for 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

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of colonists That exhibit looks at India through the eyes of colonists and corporations. —

Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 19 Apr. 2026 Paul Revere and other messengers on that night gave the colonists a chance to resist the British troops at the battles of Lexington and Concord. —

William Lambers, The Orlando Sentinel, 19 Apr. 2026 The 1774 Articles of Association, which urged colonists to boycott British goods. —

Linh Tat, Daily News, 13 Apr. 2026 Portugal and Germany in Southern Africa For much of the 19th century, Portuguese colonists in Angola and Mozambique were fewer in number and weaker in authority than those in the interior of South Africa. —

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Apr. 2026 The aiyi have sent an emissary to Scythia, who will determine whether the colonists deserve to survive. —

Stephanie Burt, New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2026 The early colonists were very much anti-idol worshippers and even modern Catholics, as Vice President Vance surely knows, have long been criticized by their Protestant counterparts for a love of statuary, reliquaries and other iconography that some have argued fall into idolatry. —

Culture Critic, Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2026 The colonists awoke from their dream of lucrative plantations to find churches in ashes and molasses cauldrons rusting in the grass. —

Literary Hub, 19 Mar. 2026 The Quebec Act, which protected Catholicism in neighboring Quebec, was seen by some colonists as a threat and is reflected in grievances in the Declaration of Independence. —

ABC News, 17 Mar. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for colonists

Noun

The fatal shooting is the latest in a surge of increasingly brazen and violent attacks against Palestinians, waged by Israeli settlers and, at times, by soldiers as well.

— Zeena Saifi, CNN Money, 22 Apr. 2026
Much of this influence played a role in what would become the dialect of the South more generally as Scots Irish settlers and their descendants spread into the backcountry of the Upper and, a bit later, the Lowland South.

— Valerie Fridland, Big Think, 21 Apr. 2026