Wikimore

A person who makes a great discovery.
- 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, “‘It’s Just the very Biggest Thing in the World’”, in The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC, page 58:
  It is colossal. You are a Columbus of science who has discovered a lost world.
  Category:English terms with quotations#COLUMBUS

Verb

Columbus (third-person singular simple present Columbuses, present participle Columbusing, simple past and past participle Columbused)Category:English lemmas#COLUMBUS Category:English verbs#COLUMBUS Category:English entries with incorrect language header#COLUMBUS Category:Pages with entries#COLUMBUS Category:Pages with 2 entries#COLUMBUS

(possibly dated Category:English dated terms#COLUMBUS, slang Category:English slang#COLUMBUS) To explore; to go around exploring, to go around as an explorer.
- 1893, American Boys Afloat: Or, Cruising in the Orient, page 150:
  "But, boy the powers of mud, I belayve you fellers mane to make an indepindint cruise in the Orient, and go Columbusing all over the ocean boy the way ye's talk!"
  Category:English terms with quotations#COLUMBUS
- 1908, Out West, volume 28, page 90:
  Callous as the old mummy was about anything and everything save his pet hobby, archaeology, he would sit up and take notice of such a vision ; and Peter felt that, having Columbused the discovery, he had the better right to it.
  Category:English terms with quotations#COLUMBUS
- 1908, Sunset, volume 20, page 271:
  To the west of the river lay the country in which I went Columbusing — the enchanted desert whose southern boundary was where the sky reached down and merged with the earth curve, and whose northern limit was the Harqua Hala range […]
  Category:English terms with quotations#COLUMBUS
- 1921, Forest Leaves, volume 15, page lxx:
  No street car line passes it, so you'll have to do a little Columbusing on your own account-to find it-—but it's worth discovering, and President Gardner's phophecy sounds conservative.
  Category:English terms with quotations#COLUMBUS
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(derogatory Category:English derogatory terms#COLUMBUS, slang Category:English slang#COLUMBUS, US Category:American English#COLUMBUS) To appropriate; to lay claim to something, especially a discovery, which is perceived as belonging to someone else.
- 2014, Justin Simien, Dear White People, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 97:
  When his black friend tells him that many people knew about the bar before he did, his white friend retorts by saying that he “Columbused it”; i.e., discovered it for white people before a gaggle of hip white people flooded in.
  Category:English terms with quotations#COLUMBUS
- 2014 July 6, Brenda Salinas, “‘Columbusing’: The Art Of Discovering Something That Is Not New”, in NPR‎, archived from the original on 8 August 2020:
  If you've danced to an Afrobeat-heavy pop song, dipped hummus, sipped coconut water, participated in a Desi-inspired color run or sported a henna tattoo, then you've Columbused something. […] Sometimes, though, Columbusing can feel icky. […] Of course, there is no bouncer, but we can be careful not to Columbus other culture's traditions.
  Category:English terms with quotations#COLUMBUS
- 2015, Frederic Charles Schaffer, Elucidating Social Science Concepts, Routledge, →ISBN, page 54:
  He then lists other things that have been Columbused, such as twerking by Miley Cyrus and hummus by “health conscious whities.”
  Category:English terms with quotations#COLUMBUS