Electees

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who have been chosen or selected for a position or role
2. Persons chosen through an election process to serve in a particular capacity
3. Candidates who have been elected to hold a specific office or duty

Etymology: "Electees" is the plural of "electee," a person who has been chosen for an office or role, and the word is built from two parts. The first is "elect," which comes from Latin "electus," the past participle of "eligere," meaning "to pick out" or "to choose," itself built from "e-" ("out") and "legere" ("to gather, choose"). The second is the suffix "-ee," which English adds to verbs to name the person on the receiving end of an action, as in "employee" or "nominee." Put together, "electee" describes someone who has been picked, rather than someone who does the picking. That is why the word sits so comfortably beside "nominee" and "appointee," which name people chosen by others for a post. The pattern is an English one: the suffix came into English through Anglo-Norman French, and speakers have used it freely to create new terms for people chosen, hired, or otherwise acted upon.