## AI Etymology
Colonist comes from colony + -ist, from Latin colonia ('settlement'), from colonus ('farmer, settler'), from colere ('to cultivate, inhabit'). The historical trail runs through colonia in Latin and colere in Latin. Morphologically, colonist is transparent: it draws on colony + -ist, from Latin colonia ('settlement'), from colonus ('farmer, settler'), from colere ('to cultivate, inhabit'). Used as a noun, colonist now means "a settler in or inhabitant of a colony", so the present definition can be read against the older forms and meanings. The same lexical family is also visible in related forms such as colony, colonial, colonize, and colonialism. The result is a borrowed or transmitted form whose modern spelling carries a compact record of its route into English.

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