entrepreneur

Borrowed from French entrepreneur (“one who undertakes or manages”),^[1] from Middle French entrepreneur, from entreprendre (“to undertake”) +‎ -eur.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɒn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɜː/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/, /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnʊɚ/
• IPA^(key): /ˌɑ̃.tɹə.pɹəˈnœ˞/^[2]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ), -ʊə(ɹ)

entrepreneur (plural entrepreneurs)

1. A person who sets up a business; generally, a person who owns and manages a business and assumes its financial risks. [from 1762]
   • 2021 January 13, Christian Wolmar, “Read all about London's Cathedrals of Steam”, in RAIL, issue 922, page 62:

     Every rail company worth its salt wanted to connect with London. Interestingly, it was largely that way around - provincial entrepreneurs wanting to connect with the capital, rather than London capitalists seeking to spread outwards.

2. (now rare) A person who organizes concerts, plays, or other entertainments; the manager of a theatre or similar venue; an impresario. [from 1800]
3. (rare, sometimes figurative) A person who serves as an intermediary; a middleman; a go-between.
   • 1938, Federal Writers' Project, “Market Place for Words”, in New York Panorama: A Comprehensive View of the Metropolis [...], New York: Random House, page 172:

     Chicago, it was, by way of compensation, beginning to take on the cosmopolitan cast of culture that it has worn ever since, as entrepreneur between the Old World and the New.

4. (obsolete) A person who manages an artist or performer; an agent. [1851–1887]

• entrepreneuse

• “entrepreneur, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• Philip Babcock Gove et al., editors (1961), “entrepreneur”, in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged [...], volume I: A to G, Merriam-Webster Inc., →ISBN, page 758; republished Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1993, →ISBN

Inherited from Middle French entrepreneur, from entreprendre (“to undertake”) +‎ -eur.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ɑ̃.tʁə.pʁə.nœʁ/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• Audio:

  (file)

entrepreneur m (plural entrepreneurs, feminine entrepreneuse)

1. entrepreneur (person who organizes and operates a business venture)

• entrepreneuse

• → English: entrepreneur
• → Polish: przedsiębiorca, przedsiębierca (obsolete) (calque)
  • → Kashubian: przedsãbiérca
• → Romanian: antreprenor
• → Spanish: emprendedor (calque)

• “entrepreneur”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Unadapted borrowing from French entrepreneur.

entrepreneur (plural entrepreneur-entrepreneur or para entrepreneur)

1. (uncommon) synonym of wirausaha

• “entrepreneur” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.