pilgrim

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B2 — Upper-Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun someone who journeys in foreign lands
  2. noun one of the colonists from England who sailed to America on the Mayflower and founded the colony of Plymouth in New England in 1620
  3. noun someone who journeys to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English pilegrim, from Old English pilegrī̆m, from Old French pelegrin, from Latin peregrīnus (“foreigner”). Doublet of peregrine. The change of /r…r/ to /l…r/ is an effect of dissimilation in early Romance; compare Italian pellegrino.

In classic literature

A single word — an entire dictionary opens.

Type a word, a sentence, a book title, or a link to an English article. WordNet and the Classics answer.

Try

A library of classics · a vault of words · instant etymology & meaning

Continue reading