Caster

How to spell caster

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce caster

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does caster mean?

1. nounA small swivelling wheel fixed to the leg or base of furniture so it can be rolled.
2. nounFinely ground white sugar, used chiefly in baking; the term is standard in British and Commonwealth cooking.
3. nounA person or thing that casts something, such as molten metal in a foundry or a fishing line.

Caster in a sentence

• One caster on the office chair had jammed and would not turn.

• The recipe calls for two hundred grams of caster sugar.

• The bronze caster poured the molten metal into the mould.

• He fitted a new caster to the bottom of the heavy trolley.

• She whisked the egg whites and added the caster slowly.

• As a skilled caster, he could place the fly exactly on the far bank.

Where does caster come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word is built from the verb 'cast' plus the agent suffix '-er', so it literally names something that casts. The verb 'cast' came into English in the 1200s from the Old Norse 'kasta', meaning 'to throw', brought over by Norse settlers, and over time it gained extra senses including 'to turn', 'to shape in a mould', and 'to spread or sprinkle'. The small swivelling furniture wheel takes its name from the idea of a piece that lets a chair or trolley turn freely and roll where it is cast. In cooking, 'caster sugar' is named after the perforated 'caster', a shaker once used to cast or sprinkle the fine sugar over food. Note the easy mix-up with 'castor', the spelling used for castor oil and the castor bean, which has a separate Latin and Greek ancestry; modern British usage tends to keep 'caster' for the wheel and the sugar and 'castor' for the oil.

How the word is built

• cast (to throw, turn, or shape)
• -er (agent or instrument suffix: a thing or person that casts)

Words that sound like caster

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• castor: A thick oil pressed from the seeds of the Ricinus plant, used as a purgative and as a lubricant.