of various origin, occurring in sbs. and adjs. adopted from OF.
1. ME. -er, repr. OF. -er:—L. -ārem, -ar: see -AR. Nearly all the ME. words ending in -er of this origin have been refashioned after Lat., so that the suffix is now written -ar: see examples under -AR. The older form of the suffix is retained in sampler.
2. ME. -er, a. AF. -er (OF. -ier) in sbs. that descend from L. forms in -ārius, -ārium (see -ARY), or which were formed in Fr. after the analogy of those so descending. Where the L. type of the suffix is the masc. -ārius, it has usually the sense ‘a person connected with,’ and the words are designations of office or occupation, as butler, carpenter, draper, grocer, mariner, officer. (So also in a few ME. adoptions of OF. fem. sbs. in -iere:—L. -āria, as chamberer, lavender.) Where the suffix represents the L. neuter -ārium, the sense is ‘a thing connected with,’ ‘a receptacle for,’ as in antiphoner, danger, garner, etc.
3. In mod. Eng. -er appears as a casual representative of various other suffixes of OF. origin; thus in border, bracer, it stands for OF. -ëure (:—L. -ātūram), commonly represented by -URE; in laver it stands for OF. -ëor, now -oir (:—L. ātōrium), in ME. rendered -OUR. The agent-suffix -OUR (OF. -ëor:—L. -ātōrem) is now very often replaced by -er; it can seldom be determined whether this is due to phonetic weakening, or to the substitution of -ER1 for its Romanic synonym. Where the same word had in 14th c. the two forms -our and -er(e, as chaungeour, changer, the former supposition is excluded; but the forms in -er(e may possibly sometimes be a. OF. nominative forms in -ere:—L. -ā·tor.
