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Comment by hartator | Hacker News Reader

"Entrepreneur" is a french word.

"Entre" means between and "Preneur" means parts. A indirect english synonym would be middleman. Traditionally, it was referring to people in the building industry that set up building site with plumber, electrician, workers... So, a freelancer is not an entrepreneur. Strictly speaking if you don't have any employees you are not an entrepreneur.

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Preneur comes from "prendre" which means to take. So a more literal translation would be an undertaker, not as someone who manages burials, but undertakes something.

(By the way an undertaker, would be translated as an "Entrepreneur de pompes funèbres" in French)

"Preneur" means taking part.

I stand corrected, I had misunderstood your post, I interpreted part as a mechanical part.

Don't stand corrected. The german word is Unternehmer which literally means "under-taker". This is probably not a coincidence and the french meaning is probably the same.

As a point of linguistic curiousity, would a more accurate literal translation be "one who undertakes", or perhaps "one who engages in", given the fairly specific meaning of "undertaker" in English?

Yes.

That's interesting. So, it the U.S., we would call such a person a General Contractor. The person in the building industry who coordinates all the various building trades to get the building built.

It is also an English word that means a person who starts businesses that mostly fail but has at least one that hasn't failed yet.

Same is true in French.

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