trailblazer

A trailblazer is literally someone who helps make a way through unfamiliar ground—and, figuratively, someone who is first in a field. The compound is formed from trail and blazer; the research gives no date for the coinage or first recorded use of the complete word.

Trail came through Middle English trailen, from Old French trailler, “to tow” or “pick up the scent of a quarry,” and Vulgar Latin tragulāre, “to drag.” Old French trailler is traced to Latin tragula, a dragnet or a javelin thrown by a strap. Blazer is formed from blaze and the agent-forming suffix -er. The fire word blaze descends from Old English blæse, blase, “flame, firebrand, torch,” and Proto-Germanic blasǭ, “torch”; its deeper root is given as Proto-Indo-European bʰel-, associated with blazing, burning, and brightness.

The image of blazing a trail gives the word its literal sense of making a path, and its figurative sense of leading the way in a particular field. A 2014 Daily Telegraph example uses trailblazer for Oscar Pistorius as an emblematic innovator.