scanner

Etymology

It is formed from English scan + -er.^[2][3][4][5] The verb scan is from Latin scandō (“to climb; in Late Latin, to scan verse”),^[2][6][7] first as scanden before 1398 and as scannen from 1440.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who scans or critically examines something: 1557, in Robert Recorde's The Whetstone of Witte;^[2] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1556 and Etymonline to the 1550s.^[9][3]

Semantic evolution

The agent noun followed the verb, whose sense "to examine closely" is recorded from 1550, after the earlier "to divide verse into metrical feet".^[8] A scanner of verse is recorded from 1800.^[2] The word was applied to a mechanical device that examines all parts of something systematically from 1927, at first often in television,^[2][3] where from 1929 it named devices that transmit or rebuild an image in sequence.^[2] In the mid-20th century it was used of the rotating radar aerial (1946) and of medical machines that measure radiation from the body (1951),^[2][3] and later of digital readers for computers.^[3]

Timeline

• 1557 – a person who examines critically.^[2]
• 1800 – a person who scans verse.^[2]
• 1927 – a device for systematically examining all parts of something.^[2][3]
• 1929 – television, a device for the sequential transmission of an image.^[2]
• 1946 – a rotating radar aerial.^[2]
• 1951 – a medical machine for scanning the body.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A device that scans something systematically, especially one that reads recorded data such as a bar code, or that converts a document or picture into digital form.^[10][9][3]
2. A machine for producing images of the inside of the body for diagnosis, as a CAT scanner.^[10][2]
3. A radar aerial that rotates or swings to scan a wide area.^[10][2]
4. In television, a device for transmitting an image piece by piece or rebuilding it in a receiver.^[2]
5. A device that checks a process or condition automatically and may correct it.^[9]
6. A person who scans or examines something closely.^[10][9][2]
7. A person who scans verse.^[9][2]

Word family

• CAT scanner

Related words

• scan

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 g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins