The term entrepreneur is one of the richest terms in English having several shades of meanings. This word is highly comprehensive since it denotes at once the various activities connected with setting up, administering, operating and bearing the outcome of a business deal or activity. There are very few terms that can explain the complete import of this term. However, to best illustrate the different shades of meanings connected with this term, a good number of words can be culled out from the English vocabulary.
The first set of words can be speculator, investor and undertaker. An entrepreneur is an innovator of a business. in the first hand an entrepreneur foresees the prospective outcome of the venture and in this regard he or she is a speculator. Since o business can start without investing in small or big measure, every entrepreneur becomes an investor in the first hand. Since the entrepreneur willingly undertakes the risks and various tasks connected to the business, he or she is an undertaker.
To an extent, some other words that can be considered parallel to the term entrepreneur include business executive and managing director. These terms however suggest the systematic and professional administrative role that an entrepreneur must perform in order to run his or her business successfully though there are other dimensions to the entrepreneurial activity.
While the term businessperson explains the meaning of the term entrepreneur to a large extent, in a limited sense, the terms trader and seller will also mean an entrepreneurial activity.
An entrepreneur necessarily accepts the risks associated with the business and works with the challenges that he or she confronts. In this sense, an entrepreneur is a business decision maker.