Lister

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An individual who creates or organizes lists for reference or record-keeping ; a farming tool used to make narrow trenches for planting seeds or irrigation
2. Someone who documents or assembles items or names systematically ; a plow designed for cutting shallow furrows in soil to aid crop planting
3. A person responsible for producing inventories or catalogues ; an agricultural implement employed to form drills in fields for sowing

Etymology: The agricultural sense of "lister" is the older and more physical one: a plough-like implement that cuts a narrow furrow for sowing seed or channelling water. The name does not come from the job of listing things at all. It is built from "list" in its old sense of a strip or border, probably applied to the furrow itself or the ridge of earth beside it, with the agent ending "-er" added on. The "list" of this sense is a separate word from the one meaning an inventory or catalogue, which came from a different source. The person who keeps lists is the later, more abstract sense, built on the same English suffix. Once "-er" was attached to a noun to name someone or something that performs an action, it could be applied to any task, so a lister became whoever made up a register or inventory. The two senses share a form but almost nothing else, a reminder that English often reuses a single suffix for unrelated jobs.

Synonyms: annotator, indexer