Richard Cantillon is widely credited with introducing the modern business meaning of “entrepreneur” in the 18th century.
Cantillon was an Irish-French economist whose work, especially the posthumously published Essay on the Nature of Trade in General, examined how people operate under uncertainty. He used entrepreneur for someone who buys or commits to resources at known or relatively certain costs while facing uncertain future prices and revenue.
The word itself comes from the French entreprendre, meaning “to undertake.” Cantillon's analysis made risk-bearing and market uncertainty central to the concept, ideas that later economists developed in different ways. His work influenced classical and later economic thought.
Cantillon did not invent entrepreneurship as a human activity, nor did he provide the modern startup-focused definition used in popular culture. Joseph Schumpeter later emphasized innovation and economic change, while Frank Knight focused on uncertainty. Cantillon's contribution is the early systematic economic treatment of the entrepreneur.