Where does “traveler” come from?
Travel comes from Old French -er, which derives from Latin -are, ultimately from Proto-Italic -os, a suffix forming agent nouns.
traveler (English): US standard spelling of traveller
Definitions
- US standard spelling of traveller
Ancestry of “traveler”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | travel | To be on a journey, often for pleasure or... |
| 2 | Middle English | travelen | to make a laborious journey, travel |
| 3 | Middle Scots | travailen | to toil, work, travel |
| 4 | Old French | travailler | Alternative form of traveillier; to suffer; to... |
| 5 | Vulgar Latin | tripaliare | to work; present active infinitive of *tripaliō |
| 6 | Latin | tripalium | torture instrument; a torture instrument |
| 7 | Latin | tripālis | that has, or is prop up by, three stake or pale |
| 8 | Latin | -ium | Suffix used to form abstract nouns, sometimes... |
| 9 | Latin | -ius | forming adjectives from nouns; nominative neuter... |
| 10 | Proto-Italic | -jōs | Forms comparative adjectives |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | -yós | Creates adjectives from noun or verb stems |