emulator

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin aemulātor (“zealous imitator, rival”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} an agent noun from aemulor (“to rival, strive to equal”),^[3][6][4] from aemulus (“striving to equal, rivalling”).^[6][7] Johnson derived it from emulate.^[8] Klein connects aemulus with imitor (“to imitate”) and imāgō (“image, likeness”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

One who is zealous for a cause: 1582, in the Rheims New Testament (Galatians 1:14), rendering the Latin aemulator.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1580s, in the sense "rival, competitor".^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Catholic translators at Rheims and Douay used emulator for the Latin word of the Vulgate, of a person zealous for a cause (1582) and of God as a jealous being who tolerates no rival (1609).^[2] In general use it first meant a rival or competitor, sometimes one who enviously runs another down, from Robert Greene's Menaphon (1589) until 1750;^[2][4] Johnson (1755) defined it only as a rival or competitor.^[8] The sense "one who tries to equal another, a zealous imitator" appears in 1652.^[2][3] In 1965 the word was taken up in computing for hardware or software that lets one device behave like another, especially so that a computer can run programs written for a different one.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1582 – one zealous for a cause, in the Rheims New Testament.^[2]
• 1589 – a rival, competitor (obsolete by 1750).^[2][4]
• 1609 – of God, a jealous being who brooks no rival.^[2]
• 1652 – a zealous imitator of another.^[2][3]
• 1965 – in computing, a device or program that emulates another.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who tries to equal or surpass another; an imitator or rival.^[4][5][2]
2. (computing) Hardware or software that lets one computer or device run programs or process data as another does: He played old arcade games on a console emulator.^[4][5][2]
3. (obsolete, 1589–1750) A rival or competitor.^[2][8]

Related words

• emulate
• emulation
• emulous

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
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 Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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.