Voyager

How to spell voyager

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce voyager

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does voyager mean?

1. nounA person who makes a long journey, especially by sea, air, or into unfamiliar territory.

Voyager in a sentence

• The lone voyager kept a careful diary of every port the ship visited.

• Each weary voyager filed slowly down the gangway after the long crossing.

Where does voyager come from?

Language of origin: French

The word traces back to the Latin viaticum, which literally meant 'provisions for a journey' and was built on via, the ordinary Latin word for 'a road' or 'a way'. In Late Latin viaticum drifted from meaning the supplies you packed to meaning the journey itself, and it passed into Old French as voiage, a word for a trip or expedition. English borrowed the noun voyage in the 1300s, chiefly for travel by sea, and later added the familiar agent ending -er to name the person making the trip. So a voyager is quite directly 'one who travels the way', with the same via root that still sits inside everyday words like 'via', 'viaduct', and 'deviate'. The slightly tricky spelling, the oy in the middle and the soft -ger ending, is a leftover of that French stage, since French softened the original v-i-a sound into the voy- we now write.

How the word is built

• voyage (a long journey, from Latin viaticum)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)