Chronographer

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /krə(ʊ)ˈnɒɡɹəfəɹ/

Definitions

1. An instrument or individual who records or measures the passage of time
2. A device or person responsible for tracking and documenting time intervals
3. Something or someone that captures and notes time durations accurately

Etymology: "Chronographer" is built from "chronography" plus the agent suffix "-er," so it names a thing that does the job of chronography, which is the recording of time. Its roots are Greek: "chronos" meaning time and "graphein" meaning to write or record. Together they produce a term for an instrument that writes down time, as opposed to a person who records it. The suffix does the work of turning an action into a thing. A chronographer is a device that records time, typically by marking elapsed intervals on a dial or a tape, so the word describes what the machine does rather than what it is made of. The same pattern appears in words like "photographer," which began as a name for a camera-like device and later came to mean the person operating it.

Synonyms: historian