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conquistador

[kon-kwis-tuh-dawr, kong-, kawng-kees-tah-thawr] / kɒnˈkwɪs təˌdɔr, kɒŋ-, kɔŋˌkis tɑˈðɔr /
NOUN
conqueror
Synonyms
Antonyms
STRONG


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Jonathan Cake cuts a dashing figure as Willy’s brother Ben, who has grown in Willy’s imagination into a fabulous conquistador.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026

The FBI has returned a 500-year-old stolen document signed by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés to Mexico.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2025

Others credit Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, who got a taste of chocolate after being served Xocolatl by Montezuma himself.

From Salon ● Feb. 17, 2025

To do so, he elicits help from fellow students, but their presentation is derailed by unlikely apparitions: a conquistador, a small child, Laura Linney.

From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2024

When Hernando de Soto became the first European conquistador to march through the southeastern United States, in 1540, he came across Indian town sites abandoned two years earlier because the inhabitants had died in epidemics.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

But the preoccupations among the conquistadores are plunder, religious conversions or, in Magellan’s case, an impulse to bring the world to his feet by making it navigable.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026

Peru's largest archaeological sites are located outside Lima in places such as Cusco, which was the capital of the Inca Empire and fell to Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century.

From Reuters ● Nov. 22, 2023

Some of the vines had been planted centuries earlier, by conquistadores and missionaries.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 18, 2019

Spanish conquistadores came to this region in the 16th century seeking the fabled Seven Cities of Gold.

From New York Times ● Nov. 6, 2019

Similar questions arise for the decimation of many other native peoples by Eurasian germs, as well as for the decimation of would-be European conquistadores in the tropics of Africa and Asia.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

A centuries-old document telling the story of the Aztec civilisation and its fall after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in pictograms is going on display in Mexico for the first time in 186 years.

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026

Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and his Spanish conquistadors had marched many miles through the desert in search of the reputed Seven Cities of Gold.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026

Last month, King Felipe, while visiting a museum exhibition showcasing Mexican Indigenous women, conceded that the actions of Spanish conquistadors had featured “much abuse” and raised “ethical controversies.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2026

Somewhat later, Spanish conquistadors followed Columbus across the Atlantic to conquer the Aztec and Incan empires, occupying significant parts of the Americas.

From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2024

The few carbon dates available suggest that the fields date from about three thousand years ago to about five hundred years ago—roughly the time the conquistadors arrived, bringing European diseases.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann




Vocabulary lists containing conquistador


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