Organizer

How to spell organizer

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce organizer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does organizer mean?

1. nounA person who plans and coordinates an event, group, or activity.
2. nounA container, folder, or app used to keep items or information in order.

Organizer in a sentence

• The conference organizer confirmed the schedule a week early.

• She bought a desk organizer to sort her pens and paperclips.

• As union organizer she negotiated the new shift patterns.

• The digital organizer syncs his appointments across every device.

Where does organizer come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek organon, which literally meant a tool or instrument, and by extension a bodily organ that does a particular job. Latin took it up as organum, and from there it passed into Old French and into English as 'organ'. From the noun came the verb 'organize', meaning to arrange parts into a working whole, recorded in English from around the late 1300s and built up strongly in the 1700s in the sense of forming things into orderly systems. Adding the agent suffix -er produced 'organizer', a person who arranges or coordinates, with the later concrete sense of an object that keeps belongings or notes in order following in the twentieth century. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle: the schwa in 'organ' hides whether it is an 'a' or 'e', and writers using British style must also decide between the -ize and -iser endings, since the same word is commonly written 'organiser' in the United Kingdom.

How the word is built

• organ- (from Greek organon: tool, instrument)
• -ize (verb-forming suffix: to make or do)
• -er (agent or instrument suffix: one who, or that which)

British and American spelling

Organizer is the American spelling. British English spells it organiser.