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transmitter

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Etymology and origin of the English word transmitter

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1727 Richard Savage, The Bastard
Ultimate origin
Latin mittō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin transmitto
English transmit
English transmitter
From the same root
Latin transmissus ← transmitto

Etymology

It is formed from English transmit + -er.[1][2][3][4][5] The verb transmit, recorded from about 1400,[4] comes through Middle English transmitten from Latin trānsmittō (“to send across, transfer”), from trāns- (“across”) and mittō (“to send”).[4][6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person or thing that transmits something: 1727, in Richard Savage's The Bastard.[1][4][2] Johnson (1773) defined it simply as "one that transmits".[7]

Semantic evolution

From 1844 the word named the sending part of a telegraph, and later of a telephone, as opposed to the receiver.[1][4] Etymonline dates the sense "apparatus for sending out radio or television signals" to 1934.[4] In physiology it has been used since 1930 for a neurotransmitter.[1]

Timeline

  • 1727 – one who or that which transmits.[1][4][2]
  • 1844 – the sending instrument of a telegraph.[1][4]
  • 1930 – physiology, a neurotransmitter.[1]
  • 1934 – a radio or television transmitting apparatus.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A person or thing that transmits something.[8][1]
  2. Equipment that generates a radio signal, modulates it with information and sends it out through an aerial: The station's transmitter stands on the hill above the town.[8][4]
  3. The part of a telephone that turns sound into electrical signals.[8][2]
  4. The part of a telegraph instrument that sends messages as coded electrical signals.[8][2][1]
  5. (physiology) A neurotransmitter.[8][1]

Word family

  • neurotransmitter

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  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. ^ 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 d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
Cite this entry

“Transmitter.” Etymologically, 26 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/transmitter. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·