Beater

How to spell beater

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce beater

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does beater mean?

1. nounA handheld or electric kitchen implement used to whisk or blend ingredients such as eggs and cream.
2. nounAn informal term for an old, worn-out, or barely functioning car.

Beater in a sentence

• She dipped the beater into the bowl and whipped the cream until it stiffened.

• He drove a rusty beater to work because he refused to pay for a new car.

• The electric beater made quick work of the cake batter.

• The students pooled their money for a cheap beater to get around campus.

Where does beater come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the native verb 'beat', which descends from Old English 'beatan', meaning 'to strike or pound repeatedly', a word with deep Germanic roots and cousins across the old Northern languages. To this very old verb English simply added the agent suffix '-er', meaning 'a person or thing that performs the action', a productive ending that lets speakers turn almost any verb into a doer. The result first named people who strike things and later, naturally, the tools that do the striking, such as a kitchen device for whipping eggs and cream. From the same impulse came informal extensions like a 'beater' for a battered old car that takes a beating, and a 'beater' in the sport of driving game birds toward waiting guns. Because the spelling is utterly regular, just 'beat' plus 'er', the only thing to remember is that 'beat' keeps its 'ea' vowel pair throughout.

How the word is built

• beat (to strike repeatedly)
• -er (agent suffix: one who or that which does)