the.com/settler

means A person who leaves their homeland to permanently occupy and work land in a new place, claiming it as their own.

from From 'settle,' tracing back to Old English 'setlan' (to place or fix in position), itself rooted in 'setl' meaning a seat or dwelling-place — the same ancient root that gives us 'sit.' The word carried the sense of coming to rest, establishing yourself somewhere fixed, long before it picked up its colonial baggage. By the 17th century, 'settler' had narrowed to mean someone who plants themselves on land new to them — the etymology is honest about the sitting-down part; history is less honest about the whose-land part.