Bleater

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A sheep, goat or similar animal that makes a plaintive cry ; a person who complains in a feeble, whining manner
2. An animal, such as a sheep or goat, whose plaintive call is characteristic ; someone who grumbles in a weak, whiny way
3. A sheep or goat that gives out its high-pitched cry ; a complainer whose protests are feeble and full of whining

Etymology: The word "bleat" is an old imitative verb, the sound of a sheep or goat rendered in the English that Anglo-Saxons used, and "bleater" is simply that verb with an agent ending attached. The suffix has a longer past than the verb itself. It descends from a Latin ending, "-arius", which marked a person or thing connected with something, through Old French "-ier" into Middle English "-er", while the Old English form "-ere" came from the same Latin source by a separate route. In other words, English has been adding this kind of ending to nouns and verbs for well over a thousand years, long before anyone was describing a sheep as a bleater. Because the suffix is so productive, the word needs no special story. A bleater is what the verb produces: an animal that bleats, and by extension a person whose complaints sound like that thin, whining cry. The figurative sense is the one most readers meet now, and it follows the same path that many "-er" nouns have taken, from a creature to a human habit.