analyzer

Etymology

It is formed from English analyze + -er, an agent noun from the verb.^[2][3][4] The British spelling is analyser, formed in the same way from analyse.^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person or thing that analyzes: 1627, according to the 1989 edition of the OED and Merriam-Webster Unabridged.^[5][6] Etymonline and Dictionary.com date the word to the 1620s.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined the word as that which has the power of analyzing, quoting Boyle's doubt whether fire is the true and universal analyzer of mixed bodies.^[7] In chemistry and physics it was used from 1756 for a person who analyzes, an analyst.^[5] From the mid-19th century it named instruments: in the polariscope, from 1863, the part that receives the light after it has been polarized and shows its properties.^[5][4][6] Later, any device for performing an analysis could be called an analyzer, such as a combined ammeter, voltmeter and ohmmeter for testing electronic equipment.^[4][6]

Timeline

• 1627 – a person or thing that analyzes.^[5][6]
• 1756 – in chemistry and physics, an analyst.^[5]
• 1863 – the part of a polariscope that shows the polarization of light.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who analyzes something; an analyst.^[6][4]
2. An instrument or device for performing an analysis: The lab bought a new blood analyzer.^[4][1]
3. In a polariscope or similar optical instrument, the part that transmits only light polarized in a given direction.^[6][4][5]
4. A combined ammeter, voltmeter and ohmmeter for testing electronic equipment.^[6]

Word family

• autoanalyzer
• breathalyzer
• cytoanalyzer

Related words

• analyze
• analysis
• analyst
• analytic

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.