Definition of "conquistador" [conquistador]

• A conqueror, especially one of the 16th-century Spanish soldiers who defeated the Indian civilizations of Mexico, Central America, or Peru. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Justo Sierra, the turn-of-the century Mexican educator, said that "the grocer, not the conquistador, is the real Spanish father of Mexican society", succinctly summing up the tremendous importance of the dietary changes brought on by Spanish colonization."
• "In his book, Milicia y descripción de Las Indias, which might be described as a conquistador's handbook, Vargas Machuca devotes a special chapter to the treatment of wounds and illness."
• "Fitzcarraldo, which concerns a so-called "conquistador of the useless" who wants to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle and who orchestrates a boat being pulled across a mountain, he says: "You are talking so far in retrospect-that's three decades back.""