Word.ws English Dictionary

sherpa

/ˈʃɜː(ɹ)pə/US/ˈʃɝpə/

sherpa noun: a local mountain guide or porter, particularly a male of the Nepalese Sherpa people so employed.

Noun (1)

sherpa (countable and uncountable, plural sherpas)

  1. (countable) A local mountain guide or porter, particularly a male of the Nepalese Sherpa people so employed.
    • Climbers have warned of overcrowding on K2 — the world’s second highest mountain and one of its deadliest — after a sherpa took video of queues snaking towards the summit.2022 August 1, Emma Yeomans, Fiona Kingston, “Overcrowding on K2 as climbers queue to reach peak”, in The Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Aug 2022, UK News
  2. (countable) An expert accompanying a high-ranking leader to a summit meeting.
  3. A synthetic fabric with a long, thick pile, similar to faux fur, imitation lamb wool, or fleece.

Verb

sherpa (third-person singular simple present sherpas, present participle sherpaing, simple past and past participle sherpaed)

  1. (rare) To serve as a guide or porter for another.

Noun (2) capitalized: Sherpa

Sherpa (plural Sherpas or Sherpa)

  1. A member of a particular Himalayan ethnic group living in Nepal and Tibet, known especially as mountaineers.
  2. A high-ranking government official who works tirelessly in the background to conclude the text of an official communiqué, typically from a G7 or G20 summit.
    • Sherpas from the European Union and 19 countries worked through the week to salvage a meaningful joint statement, culminating in an all-night session on Friday.2018 December 1, Julian Borger, “G20 agreement backs 'rules-based' order but bows to Trump on trade reforms”, in The Guardian, London, United Kingdom, →ISSN, archived from the original on 29 Apr 2019

Proper noun capitalized: Sherpa

Sherpa

  1. The Southern Tibetan language of these people.

sherpa meaning in Nepali

sherpa in Nepali

local employed as mountain guide/ porter
शेर्पा śerpā

Forms of sherpa

Noun
pluralsherpas
pluralSherpas
pluralSherpa
Verb
third-person singular presentsherpas
present participlesherpaing
past participlesherpaed
pastsherpaed

Plural of sherpa: sherpas

Origin of sherpa

From Sherpa. The verb derives from the noun.

From Tibetan ཤར་པ། (shar pa, literally “eastern people”), from ཤར (shar, “east”) + པ (pa, nominalizing suffix). The reason for this derivation is unclear, but a common explanation notes that the Sherpas originated in eastern Tibet. The community is based in the Nepalese highlands, however, which is south of Tibet.

Questions about sherpa

What does sherpa mean?
Sherpa means a local mountain guide or porter, particularly a male of the Nepalese Sherpa people so employed.
What is sherpa in Nepali?
Sherpa in Nepali is शेर्पा (śerpā). See Sherpa meaning in Nepali.
What part of speech is sherpa?
Sherpa can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sherpa?
Sherpa is pronounced /ˈʃɜː(ɹ)pə/.
What is the plural of sherpa?
The plural of sherpa is sherpas.

Words near sherpa in the dictionary

  1. sheroffs
  2. sheroic
  3. sheroot
  4. sheroots
  5. Sherover
  6. sherpa
  7. sherpaed
  8. sherpaing
  9. sherpas
  10. Sherpur District
  11. Sherral

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sherpa (page history and authors); Sherpa (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:

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

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