mover

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English mevere,^[2][3] an agent noun formed from English move + -er.^[4][5][3][6] The OED compares Old French mouveeur and Middle French mouveur, and the MED movëor.^[4][2] Move is from Anglo-Norman mover and movoir, from Latin moveō (“to move, set in motion”).^[3] The obsolete “office of mover” (1473), the right to a fee on the marriage of a woman of the manor, has a separate source, Welsh amobr.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who sets or keeps something in motion, especially God as the force that moves the universe: about 1385, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, where Theseus speaks of the "first mover".^[4][2][3] In Middle English the word was also used of the outermost sphere of the heavens, the primum mobile.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that the word was originally used of God.^[3] From the 15th century it was also used of a person who stirs others to action, a promoter or instigator (about 1425, in Lydgate's Troy Book),^[4] and Johnson (1755) defined it as the person or thing that gives motion.^[7] In 1593 Shakespeare used it simply of someone or something that moves, a sense now usually qualified as fast or slow mover;^[4] the parliamentary sense, a person who moves a proposal in an assembly, follows in 1604.^[4][6] American English used it from 1810 for a settler migrating westwards,^[4] and for a person employed to move household goods, a sense the OED dates to 1894 and Etymonline to 1838.^[4][3] The phrase movers and shakers comes from Arthur O'Shaughnessy's "Ode" (1873), whose music-makers are "the movers and shakers of the world";^[8][4] Etymonline doubts that the modern sense is what he meant.^[3] Popik credits Mabel Dodge Luhan's book Movers and Shakers (1936) with popularising it, and finds it widespread from the 1950s.^[8] Green's Dictionary of Slang records mover on its own for an ambitious, successful person from 1955,^[9] and the stock-market sense, a share whose price rises or falls, dates from 1988.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1385 – a person who sets something in motion, especially God as the mover of the universe, in Chaucer.^[4][2]
• c. 1425 – a person who incites others to action; an instigator.^[4]
• 1593 – a person or thing that moves, in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis.^[4]
• 1604 – a person who moves a proposal in an assembly.^[4]
• 1626 – a source of motion; a machine that converts natural energy into motion.^[4]
• 1810 – in the United States, a settler migrating westwards.^[4]
• 1873 – movers and shakers, in O'Shaughnessy's "Ode".^[4][8]
• 1894 – a person employed to move household goods.^[4]
• 1988 – a share whose price rises or falls.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person or thing that sets something in motion: Ancient philosophers spoke of a first mover of the heavens.^[6][4]
2. A person who instigates or promotes an action; an influential, dynamic person, often in the phrase movers and shakers.^[6][10][4]
3. A person who formally proposes a motion in a debate or meeting.^[6][10][4]
4. Chiefly in North America, a person or firm whose business is moving furniture and household goods from one home to another; a remover.^[6][10][4]
5. A person or thing that moves, especially in a stated way: That horse is a fast mover.^[6][4]
6. A product that sells quickly or slowly, or a share whose price rises or falls.^[4]

Word family

• earthmover
• mover and shaker
• people mover
• prime mover
• unmoved mover

Related words

• move
• motion
• motor

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ 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 f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c Popik, Barry, The Big Apple, barrypopik.com, p. "Mover and Shaker", 24 May 2012
9. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins