Where does “murderer” come from?
Murderer comes from English murder plus the agent suffix -er, from Old French -er, from Latin -āre (infinitive ending) and -ārius (agent suffix), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mer-.
murderer (English): A person who commits murder
Definitions
- A person who commits murder
Ancestry of “murderer”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | English | murder | The crime of deliberately killing another person... |
| 2 | Middle English | murder | — |
| 3 | Middle English | murthre | murder |
| 4 | Old English | morþor | murder; great sin or crime, enormity |
| 5 | Proto-Germanic | murþrą | murder |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | mrtro- | murder, death; killing |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | mer- | to die; to disappear; sea, lake, wetland |
Words derived from “murderer”