Consoler

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An individual who offers support to others by mitigating their feelings of sadness or distress
2. A person who serves to comfort those experiencing grief, helping them find solace through difficult moments
3. A person who gives emotional support to ease another's sorrow or pain

Etymology: "Consoler" is simply "console" with the agent suffix "-er", meaning one who consoles. The suffix itself has a long pedigree. It descends from a Proto-Italic ending that became Latin "-arius", which denoted a person connected with something, and it passed into English along two routes: directly through Old English "-ere" and again through Old French "-ier", which reached English in Middle English as "-er". So English speakers have been attaching the same ending to native and borrowed verbs for well over a thousand years. The verb underneath, "console", comes from Latin "consolari", meaning to comfort or soothe. It entered English in the sixteenth century, and "consoler" followed as a straightforward English formation from that verb. The word therefore combines a Latin root with an English suffix whose own ancestry runs back through Latin, Old French and Old English.

Synonyms: comforter, supporter