- An undertaking, especially one of some scope, complication, and risk.
- A business organization.
- Industrious, systematic activity, especially when directed toward profit: Private enterprise is basic to capitalism.
- Willingness to undertake new ventures; initiative: "Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs" (Henry David Thoreau).
[Middle English, from Old French entreprise, from past participle of entreprendre, to undertake : entre-, between (from Latin inter-; see inter-) + prendre, to take (from Latin prehendere, prēndere).]
enterpriser en'ter·pris'er n.




