reader

See also: Reader

English

Etymology

From Middle English reder, redar, redere, redare, from Old English rēdere, rǣdere (a reader; scholar; diviner), from Proto-West Germanic *rādāri, equivalent to read + -er. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Räider (advisor), Dutch rader (advisor), German Rater (advisor).

Pronunciation

Noun

reader (plural readers)

  1. A person who reads.
    an early reader, a talented reader
  2. A person who reads a publication.
    10,000 weekly readers
  3. A person who recites literary works, usually to an audience.
  4. A proofreader.
    Synonyms: proofreader, printer's reader
  5. A person employed by a publisher to read works submitted for publication and determine their merits.
    Synonyms: publisher's reader, first reader
    • 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VIII, in Capricornia, page 123:
      They were dog-eared by the hands of many a publisher's-reader and postman.
  6. A position attached to aristocracy, or to the wealthy, with the task of reading aloud, often in a foreign language.
  7. (chiefly British) A university lecturer ranking below a professor.
  8. Any device that reads something.
    a card reader, a microfilm reader
  9. A book of exercises to accompany a textbook.
  10. An elementary textbook for those learning to read, especially for foreign languages.
    Appletons’ School Readers
  11. A literary anthology.
    • 1981 December 1, Thomas Hopkinson, “Streetboy Dreams; The Boy Harlequin and Other Stories (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 20, page 10:
      A good bedtime reader should entertain and delight, and that's what I find in Girard Kent's The Boy Harleqin [sic] and Other Stories.
  12. A lay or minor cleric who reads lessons in a church service.
  13. (advertising) A newspaper advertisement designed to look like a news article rather than a commercial solicitation.
    Synonym: reading notice
  14. (in the plural) Reading glasses.
  15. (slang, gambling, in the plural) Marked playing cards used by cheaters.
    • 1961, United States. Congress. Senate. Government Operations, Gambling and Organized Crime, Parts 1, 2, 3. 87-1, page 286:
      LUMINOUS READERS—Marked cards that can be read only through tinted glasses.
    • 1991, John Bowyer Bell, Barton Whaley, Cheating and Deception, page 185:
      Of the 150,000,000 decks of cards sold each year in America, Scarne estimates that 1 percent get marked at some point. Yet, as he discovered in his 1972 gambling survey, only 2 percent of average players have any idea of how to detect these "readers."
  16. (obsolete, slang) A wallet or pocketbook.
    • 1846, George William MacArthur Reynolds, The Mysteries of London, page 60:
      [] Q was a Queer-screen, that served as a blind; / R was a Reader, with flimsies well lined; []

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