Walker

How to spell walker

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce walker

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does walker mean?

1. nounA person who walks, especially for exercise or recreation.
2. nounA framework that a person leans on for support while walking.

Walker in a sentence

• The early morning walker followed the river path every day.

• After the hip operation he relied on a walker to cross the room.

• As a keen walker, she packed sturdy boots for the holiday.

• The care home ordered a new walker with wheels and a seat.

Where does walker come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base verb comes from the Old English wealcan, which surprisingly did not first mean 'to travel on foot' but rather 'to roll, toss, or full cloth by trampling it'. The agent suffix -er, also native Germanic, attaches to a verb to name the person or thing that performs it, so a walker is literally 'one who walks'. Over the medieval period the sense of wealcan drifted from the trampling and treading involved in cloth-making toward the ordinary meaning of moving along on foot, and the noun followed. A trace of the older trade survives in the common surname Walker, which once marked a fuller who worked wool. Because the spelling keeps the silent 'l' from walk and simply adds -er, the trap is hearing the 'aw' sound and the dropped 'l', not the ending itself.

How the word is built

• walk (to travel on foot)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix)