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Inherited from Middle English-ere, -er, from Middle English-ere, from Old English-ere, from Proto-West Germanic*-ārī, from Proto-Germanic*-ārijaz, usually thought to have been borrowed from Latin-ārius. However, Gąsiorowski suggests that *-ārijaz is a native formation; he derives it from earlier *-azrijaz, which he etymologises as a zero-grade form of *-sōr suffixed with *-ih₂, creating a suffix *-sr-ih₂ for forming feminine agent nouns, which was then masculinised by attaching *-ós.
keep + -er → keeper(“a person or thing worth keeping”)
(added to nouns, chiefly denoting occupations) A person whose occupation is the root noun; (more broadly, occasionally with adjectives) a person characterized by the root.
The suffix may be used to form an agent noun of many verbs. In compound or phrasal verbs, the suffix usually follows the verb component (as in passerby and runner-up) but is sometimes added at the end, irrespective of the position of the verb component (do-gooder) or is added to both components for humorous effect (washer-upper).
The occupational sense is often applied generally to members of a group, as in crewer(“a member of a crew”) and Z-lister(“one on the Z-list”); fans and hobbyists, as in K-popper(“a fan of K-pop”), and those who use a particular tool or instrument, as in JavaScripter(“a programmer who uses JavaScript”).
The entertainment slang sense is sometimes referred to as the Variety-er.
French: for players of instruments or games, often translated asjoueurm/joueusef de followed by the name of the instrument or game played, but some words have specific translations
(more; used to form the comparative): Most adjectives whose comparatives are formed using the suffix -er also form their superlatives using the suffix -est.
Final -y preceded by a consonant becomes -i- when the suffix -er or -est is added.
easy → easier → easiest; gray → grayer → grayest
When the stress is on the final (or only) syllable of the adjective, and this syllable ends in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel, the final consonant is doubled when the suffix is added.
dim → dimmer → dimmest
The suffixes -er and -est may be used to form the comparative and superlative of most adjectives and adverbs that have one syllable and some that have two or more syllables.
hot → hotter → hottest; fast → faster → fastest; funny → funnier → funniest; sugary → sugarier → sugariest
Some adjectives and adverbs form their comparatives and superlatives irregularly:
good → better → best; far → farther → farthest, or far → further → furthest, depending on the meaning
The comparatives and superlatives of other adverbs and adjectives that have two or more syllables, and adjectives that are participles are formed with more and most.
rigid → more rigid → most rigid; enormous → more enormous → most enormous; burnt → more burnt → most burnt; freezing → more freezing → most freezing
If in doubt, use more to form the comparative and most to form the superlative; for example, thirsty may become thirstier and thirstiest, but more thirsty and most thirsty are also acceptable.
Words ending with -ng are pronounced /ŋ/ by most dialects instead of /ŋɡ/. However, when -er or -est is added to an adjective, the /ɡ/ appears (in most dialects).
long (/lɒŋ/) → longer (/ˈlɒŋ.ɡə(ɹ)/); young (/jʌŋ/) → youngest (/ˈjʌŋ.ɡɪst/)
(Chinese literature)Junior, child, younger person. (Attached to a name, usually one syllable of the given name.)
Li’er said hello to his father.
1979, Women of China, page 44:
Yue’er began to laugh again and her tears shimmered like dew on a lotus leaf disturbed by a breeze. Then we heard a sound. It was Man’er.
2002 [1934], Xiao Hong, “The Field of Life and Death”, in Howard Goldblatt, transl., The Field of Life and Death & Tales of Hulan River, →ISBN, page 32:
The fish was laid out on the table, but Ping’er had not come back, nor had his father.
2014 [1959], Zhong Lihe, “The Little Ridge”, in T. M. McClellan, transl., From the Old Country: Stories and Sketches of China and Taiwan, →ISBN, page 202:
Ying’er was not yet three years old. Li’er had always been the one to play with her or to carry her places on his back.
Usage notes
Especially in Mandarin Chinese literature that has been translated into English, the suffix is often left untranslated in unaccented pinyin. This practice is similar to the use of -kun / -chan / -san or sensei in English-language Japanese fiction.
Often, an apostrophe (used to mark syllable boundaries in pinyin) is inserted before the hyphen (as in Li'er), though it can also be omitted (Yinger).
The equivalent suffix -era can be used to form feminine nouns with these meanings, but usually only the masculine or feminine form will be found in Catalan.
Because these senses are used to form adjectives of two forms or nouns referring to animate objects, both the masculine and feminine forms will be found in Catalan, with the lemma entry found at the masculine form.
fem(“five”) + -er → femmer(“fiver, five pounds/dollars/kroner/etc.”)
Forms a die throw result from numbers.
Du skal slå mindst en treer for at komme videre.
You must throw at least a three to move on.
Usage notes
Senses 1 and 3 often lead to heteronymic pairs. For example, from løbe(“run”) comes løber(“runs”) (verb form) and løber(“runner”) (noun), distinguished by stød.
In newly formed verbs, this suffix may be preceded by a euphonic consonant /t/ after a base ending in an oral vowel to avoid hiatus. In verbs formed from bases ending in nasal vowels, /n/ is inserted and the nasal vowel is denasalized:
Probably originated from the prepositioned genitive plural of etymology 3 above, e.g.: der Berliner Pfannkuchen = "the Berliners’ pancake", and then "the Berlin(er) pancake", reanalysed as an adjective instead of a noun and seen as being in the nominative singular (due to the ambiguity of the definite article der, which is both masculine nominative and plural genitive).[2][3]
Suffix
-er
Forms invariable adjectives from place names, with a genitival meaning, indicating origin from or association with that place.
Usage notes
In contemporary German, words formed with this suffix -er are written with a capital letter (§ 61 of the official reform spelling rules as of 2018), e.g. ein Berliner Pfannkuchen. In the past, they were sometimes written with a lowercase letter like most other adjectives, e.g. ein berliner Pfannkuchen.[4]
In case of placenames which are written with a space, the derived word can be written with a space or with a hyphen (§ 49 of the official reform spelling rules as of 2011), e.g. Bad Schandau → Bad Schandauer or Bad-Schandauer.
Since adjectives in -er are undeclined, they cannot normally support genitives by themselves. However, in the feminine and plural the ending -er happens to be same as that of a declined (strong) adjective and according pseudo-genitives may be encountered, such as Meldungen Berliner Zeitungen(“reports of Berlin newspapers”) instead of more proper Meldungen von Berliner Zeitungen. Such usage has been discouraged, but is no longer considered an error.
^ A. van Loey, "Schönfeld's Historische Grammatica van het Nederlands", Zutphen, 8. druk, 1970, →ISBN; § 175
^ Johann Christoph Adelung, Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1793), pages 1848-1852, sub verbo 4. -Er
^ Hermann Möller, Ahd. frôno (nhd. fron-) als elliptischer Plural, in the Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung, volume 4 (editor Friedrich Kluge; Straßburg, 1903), page 95
^ The current official spelling rules prescribe the capital letter without further explanation and without indicating the part of speech of the words formed with the suffix (compare -isch/-sch, derivatives of which are labelled adjectives in § 62).
Hungarian
Etymology
Possibly from English-er, by analogy of word pairs like blog and blogger (whose doubled final consonant is consistently pronounced long in Hungarian, as opposed to English) and/or perhaps earlier borrowed word pairs like stop and stoppol. Other existing slang terms ending in -er, like vaker, haver, sóder, might have played some role. (Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)
Most probably not a cognate of English-er or Latin-ōr or -tōr, and instead a back-formation from -ker (a variant of -ger(“-ist”)) understood as "k-" (present stem of kirin) + "-er". Natively only exists with the most basic verbs such as kirin (-ker), birin (-ber), xistin (-xer or -xîner or -êxer), dan (-der), anîn/înan (-îner)... Later also conflated with -kar(“suffix indicating a job or duty”) and -dar(“suffix indicating a possessor”). Popularized in the 20th century under the influence of similar suffixes in European languages. Before that (and now natively) diminutives such as -ok, -oke, -ek, -ik was used to form agent nouns; which are also present participle suffixes.
Despite being less likely, can still be from Proto-Indo-European*-tḗr, but the -r- is lost in Northwestern Iranic and that would have given *-it, *-id or lost entirely depending on the position, compare Persianبرادر and Northern Kurdishbira
Used to form nouns referring to doer or who works on something.
Can change to -ir (almak → alır, but içmek → içer). There are some rules governing the usage of -er/ir, the former is used in case of monosyllabic stems, while the latter is used elsewhere; with the exceptions of 14 verbs below which uses -ir on the aorist
The suffix -r is used after verb stems ending in a vowel. Unlike most negations of tense suffixes which regularly uses the suffix -me, negative aorist suffix is -mez instead of *-mer.
^ R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “-er”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies