Binder

How to spell binder

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce binder

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does binder mean?

1. nounA stiff covered folder with rings or clips for holding loose sheets of paper.
2. nounA substance that makes loose particles or ingredients hold together.
3. nounA farm machine that cuts standing grain and ties it into bundles.

Binder in a sentence

• She filed the printed invoices in a thick ring binder.

• The recipe uses a beaten egg as a binder to hold the mixture together.

• The old horse-drawn binder once cut and tied the wheat in a single pass.

• Each new employee received a binder of training notes on the first day.

• The paint dried poorly because the binder in it had separated.

• The museum displayed a restored binder used on local farms a century ago.

Where does binder come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes straight from the native Old English verb bindan, meaning 'to tie or fasten together', a thoroughly Germanic word with cousins in Old Norse binda and German binden. By adding the agent and instrument suffix -er, English formed a noun for a person or thing that binds, attested in the medieval period for someone who bound books and later for any device that holds things together. As bookmaking grew, a binder was the craftsman who stitched and cased pages; from there the sense widened to the stiff covered folder that holds loose sheets. In farming, the nineteenth century gave the word to a machine that cut grain and tied it into sheaves. The same bind root still sits visibly inside bound, bond, and bundle, which is why the spelling stays predictable: just the plain verb plus -er, with no doubled consonant.

How the word is built

• bind (from Old English bindan: to tie, fasten)
• -er (noun suffix forming an agent or instrument)