Word.ws English Dictionary

-or

UK/ə/US/ɚ/

-or suffix: creates an agent noun, often from a verb, indicating a person or object (often machines or parts of them) that do the verb or part of speech with which they are formed.

Suffix (1)

-or (noun-forming suffix, plural -ors)

  1. Creates an agent noun, often from a verb, indicating a person or object (often machines or parts of them) that do the verb or part of speech with which they are formed.
    • settle + -or → settlor
    • survive + -or → survivor
    Synonyms:
    -er, -ster
  2. Appended to the names of members of classes of components, especially those that have an extensive property name of the same root suffixed with -ance
    • Resistors possess resistance and inductors possess inductance.

Suffix (2)

-or (noun-forming suffix, plural -ors)

  1. Used to form nouns of quality, state, or condition.
    • err + -or → error

Synonyms of -or

Forms of -or

plural-ors
alternative form (obsolete)-our

Origin of -or

From Middle English -our, from Old French -eor, from Latin -ātor; reinforced by Old French -or and its source, Latin -tor, -tōrem.

From Latin -or.

Words formed from -or

Questions about -or

What does -or mean?
-or means creates an agent noun, often from a verb, indicating a person or object (often machines or parts of them) that do the verb or part of speech with which they are formed.
What part of speech is -or?
-or is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -or?
-or is pronounced /ə/ (UK).

Words near -or in the dictionary

  1. -opia
  2. -opoly
  3. -opsia
  4. -opsis
  5. -opsy
  6. -or
  7. -orama
  8. -orexia
  9. -oria
  10. -ories
  11. -orium

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -or (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “-or.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-or. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.