changer

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English changere, also chaunger,^[2][3] partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman changeour, also chaungeour and chaungeur,^[4][5][2] and partly formed from English change + -er;^[4][5][6] Merriam-Webster explains the Middle English ending as influenced by the suffix -ere.^[2] The Anglo-Norman noun, recorded from the third quarter of the 12th century, meant an exchanger or barterer, a money-changer and the controller of the Mint, and was also a surname.^[7] It corresponds to Old French changeor, modern French changeur,^[4][5] formed from changier (“to change”) and the suffix -eor;^[2][4] the OED compares Old Occitan cambiador, Spanish cambiador, Portuguese cambiador and Italian cambiatore.^[4] The French verb goes back to Late Latin cambiō (“to barter, exchange”), which Etymonline holds to be of Celtic origin.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who changes money from one form or currency into another, a money changer: before 1325, in the Statutes of the Realm.^[4] Etymonline instead dates the sense "one who alters the form of anything" to the early 14th century and "money changer" to the mid-14th.^[6] The OED notes that the word appears early as a surname, as in Roger Chaunger (1325).^[4]

Semantic evolution

From before 1398, in Trevisa, a changer could be any person or thing that brings about change, occasionally a reformer.^[4] About 1600 to 1674 it also meant a fickle person whose opinions or moods kept changing.^[4] Johnson (1755) knew only the financial sense, "one that is employed in changing or discounting money".^[8] In 19th-century Scotland a changer was the keeper of an inn or alehouse, a rare sense linked to change-house.^[4] The 20th century added machines: Etymonline dates the record-player mechanism that changes records automatically to 1930,^[6] the OED to 1952, adding that the word now chiefly means a device that holds several discs and plays them in turn;^[4] the OED also notes that the money sense now chiefly refers to a machine that gives change.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1325 – a money changer.^[4]
• before 1398 – one who brings about change.^[4]
• c. 1600 – a fickle person (obsolete by 1674).^[4]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as one employed in changing or discounting money.^[8]
• 1876 – in Scotland, an innkeeper.^[4]
• 1930 – a record changer, according to Etymonline.^[6]
• 1952 – a record changer, according to the OED.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person or thing that changes or alters something: a changer of opinions.^[2][4][5]
2. A device on a player that changes records or discs automatically; a record changer.^[2][9][4]
3. A machine that gives change for money.^[4]
4. (obsolete) A money changer.^[2][8][4]
5. A person who wavers, especially one whose views often change;^[2] the OED records this sense only from about 1600 to 1674.^[4]

Word family

• coin changer
• money changer
• record changer

Related words

• change
• exchange
• exchanger

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin