Legislator

How to spell legislator

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce legislator

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does legislator mean?

1. nounA person who makes or proposes laws, especially a member of a parliament or assembly.

Legislator in a sentence

• Each legislator voted on the proposed tax reform.

• The campaign group lobbied every legislator in the assembly.

Where does legislator come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word reaches back to the Latin phrase legis lator, which literally meant 'a bringer of law'. The first part comes from lex (in its stem form legis), the ordinary Latin word for a law or statute, and the second from lator, 'one who carries or proposes', built on latus, the past participle of the verb ferre, 'to carry or bring'. A Roman legis lator was therefore a person who introduced or proposed a law for the assembly to vote on. English adopted the compound in the early 1600s as 'legislator', meaning a maker of laws, and the related noun 'legislature' followed soon after. The same lex, legis root still powers everyday words such as 'legal', 'legitimate' and 'privilege', and the spelling trap lies in keeping the unstressed middle 'i' in '-gis-' and finishing with the Latin agent ending '-or' rather than '-er'.

How the word is built

• legis- (from Latin lex, legis: law)
• lat (from latus, carried/brought)
• -or (agent noun: one who does)