Grader

How to spell grader

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce grader

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does grader mean?

1. nounA person who assesses and assigns marks or scores to work.
2. nounA heavy vehicle with a long blade used to level and smooth earth or road surfaces.
3. nounA pupil in a specified year or grade at school.

Grader in a sentence

• Each exam grader followed the same marking scheme.

• The road crew used a grader to flatten the gravel before paving.

• Every fifth grader in the district sat the same standardised test.

• The head grader reviewed every borderline script before results were released.

• A motor grader smoothed the rutted track after the storm.

• As a third grader, she already read well above her age level.

Where does grader come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word grows from the noun and verb 'grade', which English took from the Latin gradus, meaning a 'step', a 'pace', or by extension a 'degree' or 'rank'. The same root gave us 'gradual' (advancing step by step) and 'gradient' (a measured slope), so the underlying idea is always one of ranked stages or measured levels. 'Grade' entered English in the early nineteenth century, partly through French, with the sense of arranging things by degree or quality. Adding the productive agent suffix '-er' then created 'grader', a word for the person or machine that does the grading, whether that means assigning marks to schoolwork or levelling a road to an even degree of slope. Because the base 'grade' simply takes a straightforward '-er', the spelling holds no real surprise; the only point to watch is keeping the silent 'e' of grade visible in 'grader'.

How the word is built

• grade (from Latin gradus: step, degree)
• -er (agent suffix denoting a person or thing that performs an action)