Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that opens a path or trail.
  • noun One that is original or innovative; a pioneer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who carries out pathbreaking work.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Instead, he chose young men who, in his judgment, were capable of handling the pressure of being a pathbreaker.

    Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert Timothy M. Gay 2010

  • Instead, he chose young men who, in his judgment, were capable of handling the pressure of being a pathbreaker.

    Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert Timothy M. Gay 2010

  • Instead, he chose young men who, in his judgment, were capable of handling the pressure of being a pathbreaker.

    Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert Timothy M. Gay 2010

  • Instead, he chose young men who, in his judgment, were capable of handling the pressure of being a pathbreaker.

    Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert Timothy M. Gay 2010

  • Tova Sanhadray, chairwoman of the Emunah organization and the first woman member of the Knesset to represent the National Religious Party, is regarded as a pathbreaker, since she began her public activity in Israel at a time when the participation of religious women in public life was not yet considered acceptable.

    Tova Sanhadray-Goldreich. 2009

  • As a successful director who often works outside the Hollywood studio system, Silver has been a pathbreaker.

    Joan Micklin Silver. 2009

  • It's fitting that one of the most important independent films of all time would be a pathbreaker in digitally projected and transported films.

    Adam Werbach: Sundance Report, Day 3 2008

  • As to the Mayor's modus operandi, I told Bruck that I thought he was the finest power politician I had seen in many years, that he was capable of amazing multi-tasking, that he was a progressive Latino pathbreaker and civil rights leader who might actually go "all the way."

    Tom Hayden: The New Yorker's Profiling of Antonio Villaraigosa 2008

  • The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas was a pathbreaker here, deliberately launching a major suicide-bombing offensive in 1996 to tilt a round of upcoming Israeli elections toward the hard-line Likud Party, thereby undermining the Oslo peace process that could have ended the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, over the long haul, put Hamas out of business.

    reassurance from those nice obama people 2008

  • Sosa is a pathbreaker, already perhaps the most recognizable Latino star America has known.

    Sosa's Streak 2008

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