Word.ws English Dictionary

Columbused

Columbused is the simple past and past participle of Columbus.

Meaning of Columbus

Verb

Columbus (third-person singular simple present Columbuses, present participle Columbusing, simple past and past participle Columbused)

  1. (dated, possibly, slang) To explore; to go around exploring, to go around as an explorer.
    • "But, boy the powers of mud, I belayve you fellers mane to make an indepindint cruise in the Orient, and go Columbusing all over the ocean boy the way ye's talk!"1893, American Boys Afloat: Or, Cruising in the Orient, page 150
  2. (US, derogatory, slang) To appropriate; to lay claim to something, especially a discovery, which is perceived as belonging to someone else.
    • When his black friend tells him that many people knew about the bar before he did, his white friend retorts by saying that he “Columbused it”; i.e., discovered it for white people before a gaggle of hip white people flooded in.2014, Justin Simien, Dear White People, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 97

See all 26 meanings of Columbus

Questions about Columbused

What is Columbused the simple past and past participle of?
Columbused is the simple past and past participle of Columbus.

Words near Columbused in the dictionary

  1. Columbus Channel
  2. Columbus County
  3. Columbus Day
  4. Columbus egg
  5. Columbus eggs
  6. Columbused
  7. Columbuses
  8. Columbusing
  9. columel
  10. columella
  11. columella nasi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Columbused (page history and authors); Columbus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Columbused.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/columbused. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.