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Added 9 October 2026

elector

/ɪˈlɛktə/ noun

Latin root: ēlēctor Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about elector at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

A citizen who has a legal right to vote.
Any of the German princes who were entitled to vote in the election of new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Origin

From Middle English electour (“one with a right to vote in electing some office, elector”), borrowed from Late Latin ēlēctor (“chooser, selector; voter, elector”), from Latin ēligere (“to elect”) + -tor (suffix forming masculine agent nouns), equivalent to elect + -or. Ēligere is the present active infinitive of ēligō (“to extract, pluck or root out; (figurative) to choose, elect, pick out”), from ē- (variant of ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’)) + legō (“to appoint, choose, select”) (from Proto-Italic *legō (“to gather, collect”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to collect, gather”)).

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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