mountaineer

UK/ˌmaʊn.tɪnˈɪə̯(ɹ)//ˌmaʊn.tɪnˈɪɹ/

mountaineer noun: a person who lives in a mountainous area (often with the connotation that such people are outlaws or uncivilized).

Noun (1)

mountaineer (plural mountaineers)

(archaic) A person who lives in a mountainous area (often with the connotation that such people are outlaws or uncivilized).
- (obsolete)
- This was my master,
  A very valiant Briton and a good,
  That here by mountaineers lies slain.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
Synonyms:

highlander, mountainer
A person who climbs mountains for sport or pleasure.
- He first took me into Switzerland, and had he kept me there till now, amidst the scenery with which his pen and pencil brought me acquainted, I should have looked on myself as a very happy mountaineer, and him as a delightful guide!1795, Samuel Jackson Pratt, edited by T. N. Longman and L. B. Seeley, Gleanings through Wales, Holland and Westphalia, volume 1, London, Supplementary Letters, Letter 3, page 408
- These green and sweetly smelling crops
  They led in waggons home;
  And they piled them here in mountain tops
  For mountaineers to roam.1885, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Hayloft”, in A Child’s Garden of Verses, London: Longmans, Green, page 48
Synonyms:

alpinist, cragsman, mountain climber
(obsolete) An animal or plant that is native to a mountainous area.
- This hardy race [of sheep] differ from our other breeds, not only in their dark complection and horns, but principally in the long coarse shagged wool which grows upon these mountaineers.1786, George Culley, Observations on Live Stock, London: G. G. J. & J. Robinson, p. 92
- […] the Gibbons are true mountaineers, loving the slopes and edges of the hills, though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of the fig-trees.1863, Thomas Henry Huxley, chapter 1, in Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature, London: Williams and Norgate, pages 26–27
A bird of the genus Oreonympha; also called the bearded mountaineer or eastern mountaineer

Verb

mountaineer (third-person singular simple present mountaineers, present participle mountaineering, simple past and past participle mountaineered)

(intransitive) To climb mountains; to climb using the techniques of a mountaineer.
- […] they had returned in safety to Europe, and were now in Switzerland, where they were mountaineering with great vigour.1872, James Payn, chapter 23, in Cecil’s Tryst, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, page 245
- […] no one who has mountaineered or travelled much in uncharted ground with men of very divergent or very similar powers of sight or experience will be found to discredit [the] positive but entirely accidental possession [of a sense of direction].1920, Geoffrey Winthrop Young, editor, Mountain Craft, New York: Scribner, page 345
(figuratively, intransitive) To climb as if on a mountain.
- There is a well-made path, which makes a circuit over the mass [of ruins], and is amply sufficient for all rational tourists. Those who wish to see more have to go mountaineering over gigantic columns and pilasters, and squeeze their way through passes of cut stone.1903, E. M. Forster, “Alberto Empedocle”, in The Life to Come, and Other Stories, Penguin, published 1975, page 47
- […] he sat up and shook his ears once or twice, and then sprang lightly off the window-sill and began to mountaineer about the contents of the garret.1940, Sylvia Townsend Warner, “The Castle of Carabas”, in Barbara Silverberg, editor, Kitten Caboodle: A Collection of Feline Fiction, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, published 1969, page 124
Synonyms:

clamber, hike

Noun (2) capitalized: Mountaineer

Mountaineer (plural Mountaineers)

A person from or resident of West Virginia.

Synonyms:

West Virginian

mountaineer meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

mountaineer in Hindi

someone who lives in a mountainous area: पहाड़ी pahāṛī
one who climbs mountains for sport or pleasure: पर्वतारोही parvatārohī

mountaineer in Tamil

மலைவாணர், மலையேறிமலையேறுவதில் வல்லுநர்

mountaineer in Marathi

one who climbs mountains for sport or pleasure: गिर्यारोहक giryārohak

mountaineer in Urdu

کوہ پیما

More languagesFewer languages

mountaineer in Malayalam: മലവാസി, പർവ്വതവാസി, പർവ്വതാരോഹണവിദഗ്ദ്ധൻ
mountaineer in Kannada: ಬೆಟ್ಟದ ಜೀವಿ, ಪರ್ವತ ನಿವಾಸಿ, ಪರ್ವತಾರೋಹಿ, ಬೆಟ್ಟ ಹತ್ತುವುದರಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಪುಣ
mountaineer in Tagalog: mamumundok

Examples of mountaineer in a sentence

My formal Spanish must have sounded as pretentious to the ears of the paisano as “Whither goeth my sire?” would have sounded to a semi-literate Ozark mountaineer.1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 30, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Random House, published 2002, page 228:
[…] zigzagging precipices with mountaineers ascending roped together […]1925, Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, New York: Modern Library, page 223:
At the open water we bore to the westerly shore and started to mountaineer over the hummocks piled on the land.1951, Lord Tweedsmuir, chapter 12, in Hudson’s Bay Trader,, New York: Norton, page 170:
Petro’s approach to fatherhood was pretty calm; he carried on with whatever he wanted to do while his rumbustious tots mountaineered all over him.1990, Lindsey Davis, chapter 12, in Shadows in Bronze, New York: Crown, page 90:

Synonyms of mountaineer

All synonyms of mountaineer

Forms of mountaineer

Noun
plural	mountaineers
plural	Mountaineers
Verb
third-person singular present	mountaineers
present participle	mountaineering
past participle	mountaineered
past	mountaineered

Plural of mountaineer: mountaineers

Origin of mountaineer

From mountain + -eer.

From mountaineer

Words formed from mountaineer

Phrases with mountaineer

bearded mountaineer

Words that rhyme with mountaineer

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about mountaineer

What does mountaineer mean?: Mountaineer means a person who lives in a mountainous area (often with the connotation that such people are outlaws or uncivilized).
What is mountaineer in Hindi?: Mountaineer in Hindi is पहाड़ी (pahāṛī), पर्वतारोही (parvatārohī). See Mountaineer meaning in Hindi.
How do you use mountaineer in a sentence?: My formal Spanish must have sounded as pretentious to the ears of the paisano as “Whither goeth my sire?” would have sounded to a semi-literate Ozark mountaineer.
What part of speech is mountaineer?: Mountaineer can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce mountaineer?: Mountaineer is pronounced /ˌmaʊn.tɪnˈɪə̯(ɹ)/ (UK).
What is the plural of mountaineer?: The plural of mountaineer is mountaineers.

Words near mountaineer in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: mountaineer (page history and authors); Mountaineer (page history and authors); mountaineer (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mountaineer (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mountaineer (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mountaineer (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-mountaineer.ogg.

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