Etymologically
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transmitter

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 26 October 2026 at 03:00. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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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