Pursuers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. People who actively follow or seek to capture a target
2. Individuals engaged in the act of chasing another for a specific purpose
3. Persons who follow closely behind someone in an attempt to catch them

Etymology: "Pursuers" is the plural of "pursuer," and the word is simple to build: "pursue" plus the agent suffix "-er," meaning one who does the action. The verb "pursue" came into English from Old French "poursuir," itself from the Latin "prosequi" (to follow onward), and the "-er" ending has a longer ancestry. It reaches back through Old English "-ere" and Middle English "-ere" to the Latin "-arius," which English also absorbed as "-ary" in words such as "library." The suffix's lineage is the more surprising part. Latin "-arius" denoted a person connected with a thing or occupation, so the same ending that marks a worker or doer in "pursuer" once served to name the functionary who handled a particular business. English, meanwhile, leaned on native Germanic forms for the agent sense, which is why this ending is so common in everyday words like "baker" and "writer."

Synonyms: chaser, seeker, hunter, tracker, follower

Antonyms: fleeing, avoiders, escapees, deserters, abandoners