Replacer

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A substitute person or item that fills in for another
2. An object or individual that takes the place of another when needed
3. Something or someone used temporarily instead of the original or usual one

Etymology: The word is a plain English formation: the verb "replace" with the agent suffix "-er" added at the end, so a "replacer" is literally one who replaces. "Replace" itself came into English from Old French "replacer," which joined Latin "re-" (back, again) with "placer" (to place), so the core idea is putting something back in a place where it was before or setting a new thing in an old thing's position. The suffix has a longer past than the verb. The "-er" ending descends from Latin "-arius," which Old French turned into "-ier" and English took in as "-er," with Old English already using the form "-ere" for people who carried out an action. That means the suffix was doing this job for centuries before "replace" arrived in English, so the word combines an old, widely used agent ending with a verb borrowed from French.

Synonyms: substitute, replacement, stand-in, proxy, alternate

Antonyms: original, predecessor