locator

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin locātor (“a person who lets out property; a person who gives a contract”),^[2][3][4][5] an agent noun formed from locātus, the past participle of locō (“to put, place; to let, lease”).^[2][5][4][3] The verb is from locus (“a place”).^[3] In post-classical Latin the noun also named the undertaker of a settlement of rural colonists, from the 13th century.^[2] The OED compares French locateur, a person who lets out property (1606), which in Old and Middle French had meant a person who rents property (13th century).^[2] The Shorter Oxford instead derives it from English locate + -or,^[6] and the OED takes its later sense of a person who appoints someone to an office from locate as well.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Roman, civil and Scots law, a person who leases out goods or property or offers services for hire: 1607, in Edward Topsell's Historie of Foure-footed Beastes.^[2][7] Etymonline dates this legal term about 1600,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1600–10.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense is obsolete in the OED, with a last record in 1913,^[2] though Merriam-Webster still gives it for civil and Scots law.^[5] In North America the word came to mean a person who claims land or mining rights by marking out and registering the boundaries, or who takes up a grant of land: the OED's first record is from John Filson's book on Kentucky (1784),^[2][7] and Etymonline dates it to 1803.^[3] Merriam-Webster's first known use is also 1784.^[5] Bentham used it in 1816 for a person who appoints someone to an office, a rare use that did not last.^[2] Of things, a device or system for finding the position or source of something is recorded from 1904 in the OED,^[2][7] and Etymonline dates it to 1902;^[3] it often comes with a word naming what is located.^[2] Dictionaries now also give it for the part of an index that tells where to look,^[8] for a card or file showing where records are kept^[5] and for a smartphone app that shows nearby services.^[9]

Timeline

• 1607 – in law, a person who lets out goods or property for hire.^[2][7]
• 1784 – in North America, a person who claims land or mining rights by registering its boundaries.^[2][5]
• 1816 – a person who appoints someone to an office (rare, obsolete).^[2]
• 1904 – a device for finding the position or source of something.^[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A device or system for finding or showing the location or source of something.^[2][5][9]
2. A person who marks out the boundaries of a mining claim or of land being taken up.^[5][2][6]
3. The part of an index entry that shows where information is to be found.^[8]
4. A card or file that shows where records are kept.^[5]
5. (civil and Scots law) A person who lets something out for hire.^[5][2][6]

Word family

• Uniform Resource Locator

Related words

• location
• locus
• locate
• local

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c 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 e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt