Taker

How to spell taker

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce taker

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does taker mean?

1. nounA person who takes, accepts, or seizes something, often contrasted with someone who gives.

Taker in a sentence

• Every charity needs givers, not just a taker.

• The new bond proved popular, and brokers found a ready taker for every unit.

Where does taker come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word is built from the verb 'take' plus the agent suffix '-er', which turns a verb into the noun for the person who performs it, exactly as 'bake' yields 'baker'. The root verb 'take' is unusual among common English words because it came from Old Norse 'taka', meaning 'to grasp' or 'to seize', carried into English by Scandinavian settlers during the Viking age. It gradually pushed aside the older native English verb 'niman', which once filled the same role. By the late Middle English period 'take' had become the ordinary word for receiving, accepting, or grasping something, and the form 'taker' for one who takes followed naturally. The spelling is gentle in this case: the silent 'e' of 'take' simply drops before the '-er', leaving 'taker', so the only thing to remember is that there is no doubled consonant.

How the word is built

• take (from Old Norse taka: to grasp, seize)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)