Readers

How to spell readers

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce readers

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does readers mean?

1. nounPeople who read, especially those who read a particular publication or for pleasure.
2. nounBooks containing collected passages or texts used for study or practice.
3. nounSenior university academics ranking just below professor, a title used chiefly in British universities.

Readers in a sentence

• The magazine surveyed its readers about which features they valued most.

• The language course supplied graded readers for each level.

• Two readers in the physics department were promoted to professor this year.

• Avid readers often finish a novel in a single weekend.

• The shelf was lined with old school readers from the 1950s.

• The faculty appointed several new readers to lead the research groups.

Where does readers come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word traces back to the Old English verb rǣdan, which originally meant 'to advise, to counsel, or to interpret', and only later narrowed to the modern sense of making sense of written words. The agent noun rǣdere, 'one who reads or interprets', existed in Old English long before printed books, when reading often meant reading aloud to a listening group. The verb's older 'advise' meaning still survives in the German cognate raten and in the English word 'rede', an archaic term for counsel. The plural marker -s was simply added to the agent form, giving the familiar 'readers'. The spelling holds onto the EA pair from 'read', which is the small trap here, since the word sounds like it could be spelled with double E.

How the word is built

• read (Old English rǣdan: to advise, interpret)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)
• -s (plural)