Changer

How to spell changer

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce changer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does changer mean?

1. nounA person or device that changes, exchanges, or alters something.

Changer in a sentence

• The car stereo has a six-disc changer in the boot.

• A money changer at the airport offered a poor rate on the dollar.

Where does changer come from?

Language of origin: French

The word is built from the verb 'change' plus the agent suffix '-er', which marks a person or device that performs an action. 'Change' itself reached English in the 1200s through Old French 'changier', which came from the Late Latin 'cambiare', meaning 'to barter' or 'to exchange one thing for another'. That Latin verb is widely thought to have been borrowed in turn from a Celtic root meaning 'to exchange', which makes it one of the rare everyday words with Celtic colouring underneath its Latin surface. The same ancestry survives in financial terms like 'exchange'. The spelling trap is small but real: the silent 'e' of 'change' is kept before the '-er', and the soft 'g' has to be written 'ge' rather than 'j', so it stays 'changer' and never 'chanjer' or 'changor'.

How the word is built

• change (from Old French changier: to alter, exchange)
• -er (agent suffix: one who or that which does)