[f. as prec. + -ER1.]
1. One who explores (a country or place).
1740. Warburton, Div. Legat., IV. vi. II. 12. When, on the report of the cowardly explorers of the Land, they relapse again into their old delirium.
1812. Sir R. Wilson, Priv. Diary, I. 375. The explorers enter, and immediately find themselves in a marble cave.
1848. S. C. Bartlett, Egypt to Pal., xxvii. (1879), 537. A rich harvest may be awaiting the antiquarian explorer [at Ephesus].
1856. E. A. Bond, Russia at Close 16th C. (Hakluyt Soc.), Introd. p. xix. Anthony Jenkinson, the enterprising explorer of the Persian route to India.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. i. 8. An explorer of the Alps.
fig. 1872. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. lxiv. 6. III. 154. These are no common villains, but explorers in iniquity, inventors and concoctors of evil.
† 2. One who or that which examines or tests.
1684–5. Boyle, Min. Waters, 40. And as the extent of this explorer of VVaters [a Powder] is not very great.
3. An apparatus for exploring or examining: spec. a. (see quot. 1874); b. an apparatus for exploring a wound or a cavity in a tooth.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 817/2. Explorer. An apparatus by which the bottom of a body of water is examined, when not beyond a certain depth.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Electrical explorer, an apparatus for detecting a bullet or other metallic substance in the tissues.
