What is a Mountaineer and what is Mountaineering?
You can look in any dictionary and find a definition of mountaineering and of a mountaineer, but its derivation and origin is less well researched. The earliest records that we can find are those from Shakespeare no less. Shakespeare created many words in the English language for the first time. ‘Mountaineer’ was one of them. The first documented usage of the term comes from Shakespeare’s ‘Cymbeline’. The following explanation is taken from http://www.hrsm.sc.edu/rbrook/cymbeline/language.shtml:
The evil Cloten draws his sword against Guiderius in Cymbeline and insultingly demands his disguised enemy to surrender: "Yield, rustic mountaineer" (IV.ii.100). Guiderius triumphs, however, and beheads Cloten, "Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer" (IV.ii.120).
The noun ‘Mountaineer’ adopts the French derivation, like buccaneer, cannoneer, charioteer, and musketeer. The term mountaineer provokes offence in Cymbeline, because the mountainous country of Wales was thought in Shakespeare's day to be inhabited by either outlaws, or illiterate rustics akin to the "hillbilly" stereotype of today [apologies to Wales!].
Also in Cymbeline Imogen says:
“I am nothing: or if not,
Nothing to be were better. This was my master,
A very valiant Briton and a good,
That here by mountaineers lies slain. Alas!”
And later Cloten says:
“Soft! What are you
That fly me thus? some villain mountaineers?”
Modern use of words ending in -eer (e.g. junketeer, pamphleteer, and sloganeer) retain the disparaging connotations seen in Shakespeare's use of mountaineer, but today ‘mountaineer’ now conjures up images of heroic climbers risking their lives on peaks as they practice ‘mountaineering’ - a sport that originated in the nineteenth century.
Hence: a mountaineer (noun) is now described as a person who lives in the high country or as a climber of mountains.