Library / English Dictionary

EXPLORER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A commercial browser

Synonyms:

Explorer; IE; Internet Explorer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Instance hypernyms:

browser; web browser (a program used to view HTML documents)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Someone who travels into little known regions (especially for some scientific purpose)

Synonyms:

adventurer; explorer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("explorer" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "explorer"):

conquistador (an adventurer (especially one who led the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Peru in the 16th century))

diver; frogman; underwater diver (someone who works underwater)

navigator (in earlier times, a person who explored by ship)

potholer; spelaeologist; speleologist; spelunker (a person who explores caves)

Instance hyponyms:

David Livingstone; Livingstone (Scottish missionary and explorer who discovered the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls (1813-1873))

Mackenzie; Sir Alexander Mackenzie (Canadian explorer (born in England) who explored the Mackenzie River and who was first to cross North America by land north of Mexico (1764-1820))

Fridtjof Nansen; Nansen (Norwegian explorer of the Arctic and director of the League of Nations relief program for refugees of World War I (1861-1930))

Mungo Park; Park (Scottish explorer in Africa (1771-1806))

Peary; Robert E. Peary; Robert Edwin Peary; Robert Peary (United States Arctic explorer and United States naval officer who has been regarded as the first man to reach the North Pole (1856-1920))

Kund Johan Victor Rasmussen; Rasmussen (Danish ethnologist and Arctic explorer; led expeditions into the Arctic to find support for his theory that Eskimos and North American Indians originally migrated from Asia (1879-1933))

James Clark Ross; Ross; Sir James Clark Ross (British explorer of the Arctic and Antarctic; located the north magnetic pole in 1831; discovered the Ross Sea in Antarctica; nephew of Sir John Ross (1800-1862))

John Ross; Ross; Sir John Ross (Scottish explorer who led Arctic expeditions that yielded geographic discoveries while searching for the Northwest Passage (1777-1856))

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft; Schoolcraft (United States geologist and ethnologist and explorer who discovered the source of the Mississippi River (1793-1864))

Robert Falcon Scott; Robert Scott; Scott (English explorer who reached the South Pole just a month after Amundsen; he and his party died on the return journey (1868-1912))

Captain John Smith; John Smith; Smith (English explorer who helped found the colony at Jamestown, Virginia; was said to have been saved by Pocahontas (1580-1631))

John Hanning Speke; John Speke; Speke (English explorer who with Sir Richard Burton was the first European to explore Lake Tanganyika; he also discovered Lake Victoria and named it (1827-1864))

Henry M. Stanley; John Rowlands; Sir Henry Morton Stanley; Stanley (Welsh journalist and explorer who led an expedition to Africa in search of David Livingstone and found him in Tanzania in 1871; he and Livingstone together tried to find the source of the Nile River (1841-1904))

Otto Neumann Sverdrup; Sverdrup (Norwegian explorer who led expeditions into the Arctic (1855-1930))

Sebastian Vizcaino; Vizcaino (Spanish explorer who was the first European to explore the California coast (1550-1615))

Charles Wilkes; Wilkes (United States explorer of Antarctica (1798-1877))

George Hubert Wilkins; Wilkins (Australian who was the first to explore the Arctic by airplane (1888-1958))

Amundsen; Roald Amundsen (Norwegian explorer who was the first to traverse the Northwest Passage and in 1911 the first to reach the South Pole (1872-1928))

Bartlett; Captain Bob; Robert Abram Bartlett; Robert Bartlett (United States explorer who accompanied Peary's expedition to the North Pole and who led many other Arctic trips (1875-1946))

Bougainville; Louis Antoine de Bougainville (French explorer who circumnavigated the globe accompanied by scientists (1729-1811))

Burton; Richard Burton; Sir Richard Burton; Sir Richard Francis Burton (English explorer who with John Speke was the first European to explore Lake Tanganyika (1821-1890))

Admiral Byrd; Byrd; Richard E. Byrd; Richard Evelyn Byrd (explorer and United States naval officer; led expeditions to explore Antarctica (1888-1957))

Cabot; Sebastian Cabot (son of John Cabot who was born in Italy and who led an English expedition in search of the Northwest Passage and a Spanish expedition that explored the La Plata region of Brazil; in 1544 he published a map of the world (1476-1557))

Champlain; Samuel de Champlain (French explorer in Nova Scotia who established a settlement on the site of modern Quebec (1567-1635))

Clark; William Clark (United States explorer who (with Meriwether Lewis) led an expedition from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River; Clark was responsible for making maps of the area (1770-1838))

Cordoba; Cordova; Francisco Fernandez Cordoba; Francisco Fernandez de Cordova (Spanish explorer who discovered Yucatan (1475-1526))

Cousteau; Jacques Costeau; Jacques Yves Costeau (French underwater explorer (born in 1910))

Flinders; Matthew Flinders; Sir Matthew Flinders (British explorer who mapped the Australian coast (1774-1814))

Fremont; John C. Fremont; John Charles Fremont (United States explorer who mapped much of the American west and Northwest (1813-1890))

Frobisher; Sir Martin Frobisher (English explorer who led an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage to the orient; served under Drake and helped defeat the Spanish Armada (1535-1594))

Charles Francis Hall; Hall (United States explorer who led three expeditions to the Arctic (1821-1871))

Joliet; Jolliet; Louis Joliet; Louis Jolliet (French explorer (with Jacques Marquette) of the upper Mississippi River valley (1645-1700))

LaSalle; Rene-Robert Cavelier; Sieur de LaSalle (French explorer who claimed Louisiana for France (1643-1687))

Lewis; Meriwether Lewis (United States explorer and soldier who lead led an expedition from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River (1774-1809))

Derivation:

explore (travel to or penetrate into)

Credits

 Context examples: 

A remote galaxy shining with the light of more than 300 trillion suns has been discovered using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

(The Most Luminous Galaxy in Universe, NASA)

Without any antecedent knowledge, without any warning whatever that such existed, he found himself an explorer in a totally new world.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Bennu is the target of NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission, which began orbiting the asteroid on Dec. 31.

(NASA Mission Reveals Asteroid Has Big Surprises, NASA)

The first operational dive of Okeanos Explorer’s 2016 season, on February 27, explored depths of over 4,000 meters northeast of Necker Island (Mokumanamana) in the Hawaiian Archipelago.

(Deep Discoverer Discovers a Very Deep, Ghostlike Octopod, NOAA)

The discovery, which was accomplished by comparing data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, has enabled the researchers to uncover dozens of new blazar candidates.

(WISE, Fermi Missions Reveal a Surprising Blazar Connection, NASA)

Now, the team has found dozens of these events in data collected by NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer.

(Meteoroid Strikes Eject Precious Water From Moon, NASA)

Through Disk Detective, citizen scientists study data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission (WISE), the agency’s Two-Micron All Sky Survey project, and other stellar surveys.

(A Potential New Hunting Ground for Exoplanets, NASA)

The breakfast was a success, and we sat about the fire much longer than enterprising explorers should have done, sipping the hot black coffee and talking over our situation.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

To identify these regions on Bennu, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) team equipped the spacecraft with an instrument that will measure the spectral signatures of Bennu’s mineralogical and molecular components.

(NASA to Map the Surface of an Asteroid, NASA)

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered what appears to be the coldest brown dwarf known — a dim, star-like body that surprisingly is as frosty as Earth's North Pole.

(A cold, close neighbor of the Sun, NASA)