Reviewer
nounA person who appraises, examines, or writes a critical assessment of something such as a book, film, product, or piece of work.
How to spell reviewer
8 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce reviewer
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does reviewer mean?
- nounA person who appraises, examines, or writes a critical assessment of something such as a book, film, product, or piece of work.
Reviewer in a sentence
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The magazine hired a film reviewer to cover the festival.
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Every reviewer on the site praised the laptop's battery life.
Where does reviewer come from?
Language of origin: French
The core of this word is 'view', which English took from Anglo-French 'vewe' or 'veue', the past participle of 'veoir', meaning 'to see'. That French verb descends from the Latin 'videre', 'to see', the same root that gives us 'video', 'vision', and 'evident'. The prefix 're-' carries its usual Latin sense of 'again' or 'back', so to 'review' is literally to look at something a second time, and English added the agent suffix '-er' to name the person who does the looking. The verb 'review' settled into English in the late 1400s, and 'reviewer' for someone who appraises books, plays, or goods followed by the 1600s. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the 'iew' cluster of 'view' is kept intact, so the word is built cleanly from review plus -er rather than from any softer-sounding shortcut.
How the word is built
- re- (again)
- view (to look at)
- -er (agent: one who does)
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