Islander

How to spell islander

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce islander

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does islander mean?

1. nounA person who lives on or comes from an island.

Islander in a sentence

• Every islander relied on the weekly ferry for fresh supplies.

• As a lifelong islander, she knew every tide and hidden cove.

Where does islander come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on 'island', a native English word whose history explains its tricky silent letter. The 'island' part descends from Old English 'igland', a compound of 'ig' meaning 'island' or 'watery place' and 'land', so it literally meant 'water-land'. For centuries it was written without any 's' at all. The letter sneaked in during the 1500s, when scholars wrongly linked the homely English word to the unrelated word 'isle', which had come through Old French from the Latin 'insula' meaning 'island'. They added a silent 's' to make 'island' look more learned, and that mistaken letter is exactly why the word, and 'islander' with it, traps writers today. The agent suffix '-er', a native English ending used to name a person connected with something, was then attached to give the modern sense of a person who lives on an island.

How the word is built

• island (a piece of land surrounded by water)
• -er (suffix denoting a person who lives in or comes from a place)