DictionaryRoot: -ere
Old English
-ere
a person or thing that does something
Forms
- -ere
Origin
Old English borrowed or inherited this ending through Germanic; it is generally traced to Latin -arius.
Note
It became modern English -er as the final unstressed vowel disappeared.
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noun
reader
REE-der/ˈriːdər/
A person who reads written material.
Etymology
The person-forming suffix attached to a verb that included both interpreting and reading. A reader could therefore be a counselor or interpreter, while the written-word sense already included someone who read aloud to others.