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-ator
suffix forming nouns
- a person or thing that performs a certain action
escalator
agitator
radiator
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Word History and Origins
Origin of -ator1
< Latin -ātor, originally not a suffix, but the termination of nouns formed with -tor -tor from verbs whose stems ended in -ā-; in English, Latin loanwords ending in -ātor have been reanalyzed as derivatives of the past participles in -tus ( -ate 1 ) and a suffix -or ( -or 2 ), and many new English nouns derived from English verbs based on Latin past participles (e.g., vibrator from vibrate )
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Word History and Origins
Origin of -ator1
from Latin -ātor; see -ate 1-or 1
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