Counsellour

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who provides advice or guidance to others
2. Someone who offers recommendations or expert help in personal or professional matters
3. An individual who supports others by giving counsel and guidance

Etymology: "Counsellour" is an obsolete spelling of "counselor," and its history runs through a chain of French and Latin forms that all meant, at root, "one who takes counsel." The Latin source was "cōnsiliārius," built on "cōnsilium," a word for plan, deliberation, or advice, and the verb "cōnsilior," meaning to take counsel. Middle English borrowed it as "counseilour" and "counseiler," via Anglo-Norman "cunseiler" and Old French "conseillier." English had an older word for this role. Old English "rǣdġiefa," literally "advice giver," was the native term, and it lingered in Middle English as "redere," "redesman," and "redyeve." The Latin-derived word eventually displaced all of these, so the adviser we now call a counselor was once, in English, a "redesman."

Synonyms: advisor, counselor, consultant, mentor, guide

Antonyms: adversary, opponent, enemy, foe, antagonist