Contributor

How to spell contributor

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce contributor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does contributor mean?

1. nounA person who gives money, time, effort or written material to a shared project, fund or publication.

Contributor in a sentence

• The magazine credited every contributor on the final page.

• She became a regular contributor to the local food bank.

Where does contributor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb contribuere, meaning 'to bring together' or 'to add to a common store', formed from con- 'together' and tribuere 'to allot, grant or assign'. That verb tribuere was itself rooted in tribus, the word for a 'tribe' or division of the Roman people, since assigning shares originally meant dividing things among the tribes. English took the verb 'contribute' in the early 1500s, and the agent noun 'contributor', meaning 'one who contributes', followed soon after to name a person who gives money, effort or written material to a shared end. The same tribuere root still surfaces in close relatives such as 'tribute', 'distribute' and 'attribute', all of which involve assigning or handing something over. The spelling trap lies entirely in the ending: the final syllable is an unstressed schwa, so writers are tempted to finish it with the more common -er, when the correct Latin agent ending here is -or.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• tribut (from Latin tribuere: to allot, grant, assign)
• -or (agent-noun suffix: one who does)