Raisoner

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for a person who reasons, argues or debates a point logically ; a character in a play or novel who expresses the author's own opinions and ideas
2. Someone who reasons or argues a case in an old-fashioned sense ; a dramatic figure, often a sage or commentator, who speaks on behalf of the writer
3. A person given to logical argument, especially in older usage ; a stage or fictional persona that articulates the playwright's or novelist's viewpoint

Etymology: "Raisoner" is an English word meaning a reasoner, someone who reasons or argues, and it is essentially a French borrowing. It descends from the Old French verb "raisoner", meaning to talk, argue or reason, which itself came from the noun "raison", meaning reason, from Latin "ratio". The sense of an argumentative or reasoning person is the core of the English usage, and the word appears in English writing from the Middle English period, when French vocabulary flooded into the language. The English form is built the same way as many other agent nouns: the verb stem "raison-" with the suffix "-er", which marks a person who performs the action. English has its own parallel formations, such as "reasoner" from "reason", and the two words sit side by side as doublets with different levels of usage, with "reasoner" being the common everyday form.