compositor

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English compositour,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman compositour,^[4][3][5][6] the Anglo-Norman form of French compositeur,^[4][6] from Latin compositor (“writer, compiler; arranger, disposer”),^[3][2][4] an agent noun from compositus, the past participle of compōnō (“to put together”),^[2][7][8] formed from com- (“with, together”) and pōnō (“to put, place”).^[2][7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the route through Middle French compositeur and Medieval Latin compositor.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

One who settles a dispute, an umpire or arbiter: a Scots word, first recorded in the 1489 manuscript of Barbour's Bruce (composed before 1380).^[4][5] Dictionary.com dates this sense 1325–75.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The arbiter sense was Scottish and had died out by the early 16th century in the OED,^[4] or the early 18th in the Shorter Oxford.^[6] About 1533 the word was briefly used for the author or compiler of a literary work.^[4][6] The printing sense, one who sets type, appears in 1569, in the title of a poem in John Hart's Orthography,^[4] and Etymonline dates it to the 1560s.^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as the one who arranges the types in printing, as distinct from the pressman, who makes the impression on paper.^[10]

Timeline

• 1489 – an umpire or arbiter, in Scots (obsolete by 1533).^[4]
• c. 1533 – the author or compiler of a literary work (obsolete).^[4]
• 1569 – in printing, a typesetter.^[4][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (printing) A person or firm that sets type and arranges text and illustrations for printing; a typesetter.^[2][11][4]
2. One who composes.^[2]
3. (obsolete) An umpire or arbiter, one who settles a dispute.^[4][6]

Word family

• compositorial

Related words

• compose
• composer
• composite
• composition
• component
• compound
• position

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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 Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins