mountaineer

noun

1. (archaic)A person who lives in a mountainous area (often with the connotation that such people are outlaws or uncivilized).

   “(obsolete)”

   “This was my master, A very valiant Briton and a good, That here by mountaineers lies slain.”

   “No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaneer Will dare to soyle her virgin puritie”

   “A mountaineer can tread firm upon a precipice and walk erect without tottering along the path, that winds itself about the craggy cliff, on which he has his dwelling; whilst the inhabitant of the valley travels with affright and danger over the giddy pass […]”

   “The mountaineer will not leave his rock, nor the savage his hut; neither are we willing to give up our present mode of life, with all its advantages and disadvantages, for any other that could be substituted for it.”

2. A person who climbs mountains for sport or pleasure.

   “He first took me into Switzerland, and had he kept me there till now, amidst the scenery with which his pen and pencil brought me acquainted, I should have looked on myself as a very happy mountaineer, and him as a delightful guide!”

   “These green and sweetly smelling crops They led in waggons home; And they piled them here in mountain tops For mountaineers to roam.”

   “[…] zigzagging precipices with mountaineers ascending roped together […]”

3. (obsolete)An animal or plant that is native to a mountainous area.

   “1786, George Culley, Observations on Live Stock, London: G. G. J. & J. Robinson, p. 92, This hardy race [of sheep] differ from our other breeds, not only in their dark complection and horns, but principally in the long coarse shagged wool which grows upon these mountaineers.”

   “[…] the Gibbons are true mountaineers, loving the slopes and edges of the hills, though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of the fig-trees.”

   “1892, Sutton and Sons, Reading, The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers, London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 5th edition, p. 217, There really is no need of artificial heat, for the Auricula is a mountaineer, and can endure both frost and snow.”

4. A bird of the genus Oreonympha; also called the bearded mountaineer or eastern mountaineer
5. A person from or resident of West Virginia.

verb

1. (intransitive)To climb mountains; to climb using the techniques of a mountaineer.

   “[…] they had returned in safety to Europe, and were now in Switzerland, where they were mountaineering with great vigour.”

   “[…] no one who has mountaineered or travelled much in uncharted ground with men of very divergent or very similar powers of sight or experience will be found to discredit [the] positive but entirely accidental possession [of a sense of direction].”

   “At the open water we bore to the westerly shore and started to mountaineer over the hummocks piled on the land.”

2. (figuratively, intransitive)To climb as if on a mountain.

   “There is a well-made path, which makes a circuit over the mass [of ruins], and is amply sufficient for all rational tourists. Those who wish to see more have to go mountaineering over gigantic columns and pilasters, and squeeze their way through passes of cut stone.”

   “[…] he sat up and shook his ears once or twice, and then sprang lightly off the window-sill and began to mountaineer about the contents of the garret.”

   “Petro’s approach to fatherhood was pretty calm; he carried on with whatever he wanted to do while his rumbustious tots mountaineered all over him.”

   “[…] when I got there it had started and there were no seats left. Secretly relieved, I walked or rather mountaineered back to the flat […]”