Gamer

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈɡeɪmɚ/

Definitions

1. An individual who actively engages in playing video games, often partaking in multiplayer environments or tournaments
2. A person involved in the hobby of playing video games, frequently interacting with others in a competitive or collaborative context
3. Someone who participates regularly in video gaming, whether casually or seriously

Etymology: Before "gamer" meant someone who plays video games, it meant something much older and plainer: a person who plays games in the sense of sport, sport being the old word for any recreation. The word traces back through Middle English "gamer", attested before 1450 as a common noun, and possibly as early as 1248 in the name of one Johannes le Gamer. It is built from "game" plus the occupational suffix "-er", so a gamer was simply someone who made a practice of playing. The electronic sense is the one most readers now know, and it is a later development on the same stem. The word "game" itself comes from Old English "gamen", ultimately from Proto-Germanic "*gamanǫ", meaning joy or merriment, so the root idea is amusement rather than competition. "Gamer" thus carries that sense of play as pleasure, reshaped by each generation's games.

Synonyms: player, competitor, participant