Other forms: explorers
An explorer is somebody who travels into unknown places. A polar explorer, the great explorers, explorer's notes.
The unknown is relative: most places European explorers reached were already inhabited, which is why the framing has shifted and the word now needs care in historical writing. It also covers scientific exploration — cave, deep sea, space. Note explore; and that Internet Explorer took the name for browsing, which is the sense most people now meet first.
1nounexplorerSomebody who travels into unknown places.
“The explorers crossed the frozen land with dogs and sledges.”
explorer is a traveller.
Middle French
explorer
English
explore
English, today
explorer
Built from
From explore + -er. explore comes from Middle French explorer. From Middle French explorer, from Latin explōrō (“to investigate, search out”), itself said to be originally a hunters' term meaning "to set up a loud cry", from ex- (“out”) + plōrō (“to cry”), but the second element is also explained as "to make to flow" (from pluō (“to flow”)). Displaced native Old English rāsian.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA