Silencer

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A tool that reduces sound from guns or machines while also describing a person who restricts others' freedoms of speech and expression
2. A mechanism designed to diminish the sound generated by firearms or machinery, as well as an individual who inhibits or controls the expression of thoughts and opinions
3. An apparatus attached to a firearm or machine to lessen emitted noise ; an individual who restrains or censors the communication of ideas

Etymology: The "-er" in "silencer" is one of English's most productive endings, and it arrived in this word by an unexpected route. The suffix descends from Latin "-arius," which passed into Old French as "-ier" and then into Middle English as "-er," so the same ending turns up in words as different as "baker" and "butler." Its ancestry is far older than English, but in "silencer" it does ordinary work: it takes the noun "silence" and produces a thing or person that makes silence. The two meanings came apart in different eras. The sense of a device that dampens gunfire, which is where most readers meet the word, is the more recent one, arising with the spread of firearms that needed quieter operation. The older sense, a person who suppresses speech or opinion, follows the same logic: something that brings about silence. Both uses rest on the simple combination of a base word and an agent suffix, so the history here is transparent rather than surprising.

Synonyms: suppressor, muffler, quieter

Antonyms: amplifier