Heater

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈhitɚ/

Definitions

1. A device designed to generate warmth for heating a space or object ; a person or thing that provides or applies heat in a particular context
2. An apparatus that creates heat to warm an environment or item ; an individual or equipment used to supply heat for various purposes
3. A machine intended to produce heat for comfort or industrial use ; a person or device that delivers heat to achieve a desired temperature

Etymology: The word "heater" is about as transparent as English gets: it is simply "heat" with the agent suffix "-er", meaning a thing that does the heating. Its ancestry, though, is a tangle of suffixes that passed through several languages before settling into its modern form. The "-er" ending descends from a Proto-Germanic ending that came into Old English as "-ere", a suffix used to make nouns for agents and instruments, so the word follows the same pattern as "baker" or "sweeper". The "-er" in this case has a longer and more roundabout history than most English suffixes. The Old English form "-ere" was itself related to Latin "-arius", which Old French took as "-ier" and passed into Middle English as "-er". English thus picked up the same ending twice, once inherited through Germanic and once borrowed through French, and the two streams merged into one familiar suffix.

Synonyms: radiator, warmer, furnace

Antonyms: cooler, air conditioner