explorer

plural explorers

1. One who explores something

   1 more example

   Sachs tries to remember how it felt not to walk around with this knot in his gut. He longs for his old lab in Connecticut, where the world was made of mathematics, energy, and atomic cascades, and he was its explorer. He has no business in these political orders of magnitude, where erroneous loyalties can get your brain spattered over hotel bedrooms.

   2004, David Mitchell, “Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery”, in Cloud Atlas, →ISBN, page 128

2. A person who by means of travel (notably an expedition) searches out new information.

   The dream of a Northwest Passage lured European explorers for centuries with the promise of a quick, if hazardous, Arctic sea route across the New World to the wealth of Asia.

   1989 May, Jeff MacInnis, “Braving the Northwest Passage”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 586

   1 more example

   Though now extinct, the rachni once threatened every species in Citadel space. Over 2000 years ago, explorers foolishly opened a mass relay to a previously-unknown system and encountered something never seen before or since: a species of spacefaring insects guided by a hive-mind intelligence.

   2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Rachni Codex entry

3. Any of various hand tools, with sharp points, used in dentistry.
4. computingA visual representation of a file system etc. through which the user can navigate.

   For example, Vista includes a document explorer that shows just the documents in a location without considering all of the other files that might appear there.

   2007, Mark Minasi, John Paul Mueller, Mastering Windows Vista Business: Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise

plural Explorers

1. USscoutingA participant in the Exploring program, which focuses on career exploration.

   Synonyms: Explorer Scout

2. USA participant in the Fire Service Exploring program.