Effecter

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person or mechanism responsible for initiating a certain change or result in a system or situation
2. An individual or apparatus that actively causes a specific outcome or modification in a given context
3. An entity that brings about a particular change or produces a specific outcome within a system

Etymology: "Effecter" is a plain English formation: the noun "effect" with the agent suffix "-er," meaning one who or that which does something, so an effecter is a thing or person that brings about a result. The "effect" half comes from Latin "effectus," the past participle of "efficere," "to accomplish, bring about," built from "ex-" ("out") and "facere" ("to make, do"). The Oxford English Dictionary records the word as an English noun, and the surrounding vocabulary shows the pattern clearly. English already had "effective" and "effector" in the same sense of something that produces an outcome, and "effecter" follows the same route as other nouns ending in "-er" that name the agent of an action. Its meaning stays close to the Latin root: it names the cause rather than the result, which is the reverse of what "effect" itself usually denotes.

Synonyms: causer, producer, initiator