Bartender

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈbɑːˌtɛndə(ɹ)/

Definitions

1. An individual who prepares and serves drinks, often alcohol-based, while also managing customer interactions in a social setting
2. A professional tasked with creating beverages and providing service in a bar environment, ensuring an enjoyable experience for patrons
3. Someone who mixes, serves and manages alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks to guests in a bar or pub

Etymology: A bartender is, literally, someone who tends the bar, and the two halves of the word come from different corners of the language. "Bar" traces back through Middle English and Old French to Vulgar Latin "barra", a barrier or bar, which is the sense that eventually came to mean the counter that separates staff from customers. "Tender" comes from a different source: it is an English word meaning one who attends to or looks after something, and its "-er" ending is the familiar agent suffix that turns a verb into a doer. Put together, the compound describes a worker who looks after the barrier, the counter, and everything on the far side of it. The word is English through and through, built from two native-language building blocks rather than borrowed whole from another tongue.

Synonyms: mixologist, barista, server, barman, barwoman