cantor

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cantor (“singer, poet, actor”),^[2][3][4][5] an agent noun from canō (“to sing”),^[4][2][6] from Proto-Indo-European *kan- (“to sing”).^[2][7] In Late Latin the word was already used in the Church for a precentor.^[5] It belongs with chant, from the same Latin verb.^[3][6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A leader of the singing in a church: 1538 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster,^[3][8] 1530s in Etymonline,^[2] and before 1552, in Leland's Itinerary, in the OED.^[4]

Semantic evolution

English took the word as a churchman's title, a synonym of precentor.^[4][9] The plain Latin meaning "singer" is recorded in English only in the 17th century, from a 1609 translation by Dowland, and died out by 1656.^[4] Since 1893, when Zangwill used it in Ghetto Tragedies, cantor has also been applied to the chazzan, the singer who leads the prayers in a synagogue,^[4][2] and the American Heritage and Oxford dictionaries now list this sense first.^[7][10]

Timeline

• 1538 – a leader of singing in a church.^[3][8] The OED's first quotation is from before 1552.^[4]
• 1609 – a singer in general (obsolete by 1656).^[4][9]
• 1893 – a singer who leads the service in a synagogue.^[4][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An official who sings the liturgical music and leads the prayers in a synagogue; a chazzan.^{[11][8][4][7]}
2. The leader of the singing in a church choir or congregation; a precentor.^{[11][8][4][7]}
3. In Christian worship, a person who sings the solo verses to which the choir or congregation responds.^[10]

Word family

• cantorial

Related words

• chant
• precentor
• canto
• canticle
• incantation

Usage notes

The mathematical Cantor of set theory, used attributively and in the possessive, is a different word, from the name of the mathematician Georg Cantor (1845–1918).^[4] In Cornwall a cantor was also a small wooden frame on which a fisherman kept his line.^[12]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Webster's New World College Dictionary (2014), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)