Protester

How to spell protester

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce protester

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does protester mean?

1. nounA person who publicly demonstrates or expresses strong objection to something.

Protester in a sentence

• A lone protester stood outside the town hall with a handmade sign.

• Police escorted each protester away from the blocked motorway.

Where does protester come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows out of the verb 'protest', which English took from Old French protester in the 1300s, itself from the Latin protestari, meaning 'to declare publicly' or 'to bear witness openly'. That Latin verb was built from pro, meaning 'forth' or 'before the public', and testari, meaning 'to bear witness', which is the same root that sits inside 'testimony' and 'testify'. The original sense was simply to state something solemnly and openly, and only later did the idea narrow toward objecting or opposing. The agent noun was formed in English by adding '-er', meaning 'a person who does the action', so a protester is literally one who declares opposition publicly. The chief spelling trap is the ending: '-er' competes with the equally accepted variant '-or', and the Latin testari root explains the single 't' in the second syllable rather than a doubled one.

How the word is built

• protest (from Latin protestari: to declare publicly)
• -er (agent noun suffix: one who does)