wildcatter
2
9.9
- noun
- /ˈwaɪlˌkætər/
- Specialized
:
explorador de petróleo
- A wildcatter often risks money and time to explore new drilling sites with uncertain potential.
- Texas wildcatters
- oil wildcatter
- legendary wildcatter
Examples
-
But at least I'm a successful wildcatter for the day.
Blog text (32) -
My granddaddy was a wildcatter.
-
Perhaps it was an oil wildcatter, an independent digger, working by hand there in the night, and maybe someone knew about the secret river of oil beneath the land.
Fiction book (1990) -
McMasters is a wildcatter.
-
Some Arctic wildcatters believe this estimate could increase substantially as more is learned about the region's geology.
Academic text (2008) -
Some of the wildcatters who made their fortunes in the Boom had stayed on and hired architects to build them homes as fine as any in Dallas or Houston around the Nortex Country Club.
Fiction book (1991) -
While the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas and Bakken Shale in North Dakota/Montana are two of the biggest shale oil plays, wildcatters continue trying to smoke out the next big oil find.
Blog text (18) -
The successful wildcatter struck oil in a remote area that many believed was barren.
-
Becoming a wildcatter requires both courage and a willingness to face the unknown in the oil industry.
Synonyms
7
5.3
A worker who runs the machine that makes holes for oil or gas
How Exploratory
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Wildcatter comes from wildcat, a word for an 'untamed' animal that came to mean a 'risky' venture, plus the ending -er. A wildcat well was a risky oil well drilled where no one knew there was oil, so a wildcatter is someone who drills for oil in places not known to have it.