Commentator

How to spell commentator

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce commentator

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does commentator mean?

1. nounA person who describes or analyses events, especially sport, news, or politics, for an audience.

Commentator in a sentence

• The football commentator described every pass in vivid detail.

• As a political commentator, she appears on the evening news to explain the latest budget.

Where does commentator come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin commentator, meaning 'an interpreter' or 'one who writes explanatory notes', which was built on the verb commentari, 'to consider, discuss, or make notes on'. That verb in turn traces back to commentum, an 'interpretation' or 'contrivance', and ultimately to comminisci, 'to devise or think up', which combines com- 'with, together' and a root tied to mens, the Latin word for 'mind' or 'thought'. The same mental root sits inside familiar words such as 'mental', 'comment', and 'mention'. English took 'commentator' in during the late 1300s, at first for a person who wrote interpretive notes on texts such as scripture or law, and only much later did it widen to mean someone describing live sport or current events. The double m in the middle is the usual spelling trap: it mirrors 'comment', and once you see 'comment' plus '-ator', the doubled m and the single t pattern fall into place.

How the word is built

• com- (with/together)
• ment (from mens, mind/thought)
• -ator (agent suffix: one who does)