opportunistic

adjective

Definition of opportunisticnext
as in aggressive
attentive to and ready to act on opportunities for personal gain or advancement The opportunistic salesperson was always on the lookout for potential new customers.

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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 opportunistic Lukas Nmecha was opportunistic in his long-range, low shot which caught Melker Ellborg out, but Wilson and young Callum Mills struggled to get much going in the first half. — Beren Cross, New York Times, 31 July 2026 The opportunistic crime, though—that’s actually very controllable. — Joel Feder, The Drive, 29 July 2026 From self-sufficient campaigns to opportunistic criminality Defenders used individual incidents, such as supply chain intrusions, ransomware outbreaks, and phishing waves, to quantify risk for the most of the past ten years. — Chuck Brooks, Forbes.com, 28 July 2026 Broadly speaking, these kinds of stories — powered by a stop-them-before-they-kill-again clock, making their antagonists out to be finicky geniuses or horror movie monsters instead of opportunistic mediocrities — strike me as a low form of fiction. — Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 27 July 2026 See All Example Sentences for opportunistic
Recent Examples of Synonyms for opportunistic
  1. aggressive
  2. diligent
  3. aspiring
  4. industrious
  5. enterprising
  6. dynamic
Adjective
  • His preference for a 4-2-3-1 has been evident, however, and the German is looking for Newcastle to be aggressive in the press, intensive and also direct, with a plan to get the ball forward as quickly as possible.
    — Chris Weatherspoon, New York Times, 14 Aug. 2026
  • Throughout his scuffles, however, Boone felt Grisham had gotten more aggressive inside the strike zone.
    — Gary Phillips, New York Daily News, 13 Aug. 2026
Definition of aggressive
Adjective
  • The Boks were also diligent but crashing into a good Pumas defense.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 8 Aug. 2026
  • The person who reads a stack of newsletters before breakfast gets treated as diligent, and the person who scrolls for an hour and calls it research gets away with it entirely.
    — Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2026
Definition of diligent
Adjective
  • The pair are best friends of Fabian Salah, an aspiring musician who makes up one half of the main couple in that novel alongside hockey player Ryan Price.
    — Nicole Fell, HollywoodReporter, 13 Aug. 2026
  • Then there’s Casey Trotter as an aspiring drummer named Cliff.
    — Sarah Hearon, Entertainment Weekly, 13 Aug. 2026
Definition of aspiring
Adjective
  • With an ecosystem as capricious as this, the local wildlife is born and bred to go with the flow—think gentle-but-giant humpback whales, colonies of industrious beavers, and torpedoing peregrine falcons, the fastest animals on Earth.
    — Kat Chen, Condé Nast Traveler, 7 Aug. 2026
  • Also, Norway’s Berg is going under the radar, despite similarly industrious performances in midfield.
    — Jack Pitt-Brooke, New York Times, 11 July 2026
Definition of industrious
Adjective
  • This feature helped enable what Nokia researchers called kiosks—informal pay-per-call services, in which an enterprising phone subscriber charged neighbors and family members by the minute for use of the device.
    — IEEE Spectrum, IEEE Spectrum, 13 July 2026
  • Their younger son’s back issues are indeed the least of the family’s problems, especially when a deal made with a more enterprising neighboring farmer winds up going bust.
    — Jordan Mintzer, HollywoodReporter, 22 May 2026
Definition of enterprising
Adjective
  • The curves work well, giving the stadium a dynamic feel that is sorely lacking at Derby, Leicester and their ilk.
    — Richard Sutcliffe, New York Times, 13 Aug. 2026
  • Prices continue to grow higher on the primary side as well, and dynamic pricing and higher fees are two of concertgoers’ most frequent complaints about purchasing tickets.
    — Ethan Millman, HollywoodReporter, 12 Aug. 2026
Definition of dynamic

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opportunist
opportunistic
opportunists
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Cite this Entry

“Opportunistic.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/opportunistic. Accessed 16 Aug. 2026.

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Nglish: Translation of opportunistic for Spanish Speakers

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