Alternative forms

• aucthor, aucthour, auctor, auctour, auctoure, authour, authoure, autor, autour, autoure (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle EnglishCategory:English terms inherited from Middle English#AUTHORCategory:English terms derived from Middle English#AUTHOR auctour, from Anglo-NormanCategory:English terms derived from Anglo-Norman#AUTHOR autour, from Old FrenchCategory:English terms derived from Old French#AUTHOR autor, from LatinCategory:English terms derived from Latin#AUTHOR auctor, from augeō (“to increase, originate”). The h, also found in Middle French autheur, is unetymological as there is no h in the original Latin spelling. The OED attributes the h to contamination by authentic. Doublet of auteurCategory:English doublets#AUTHOR.

Pronunciation

• (non-rhotic)
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɔː.θə/Category:English 2-syllable words#AUTHORCategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#AUTHOR
  • (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈoː.θə/Category:English 2-syllable words#AUTHORCategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#AUTHOR
• (non-rhotic)
  • (General American, without the cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈɔ.θɚ/, [ˈɔ.θɚ] ~ [ˈɔ.θɹ̩]Category:English 2-syllable words#AUTHORCategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#AUTHOR
    • (US, Canada, cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈɑ.θɚ/ ~ /ˈɒ.θɚ/Category:English 2-syllable words#AUTHORCategory:English 2-syllable words#AUTHORCategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#AUTHOR

      • Audio (US):

        (file)

        Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#AUTHOR
• Rhymes: -ɔːθə(ɹ)Category:Rhymes:English/ɔːθə(ɹ)#AUTHORCategory:Rhymes:English/ɔːθə(ɹ)/2 syllables#AUTHOR
• Hyphenation: au‧thor

Noun

author (plural authors)Category:English lemmas#AUTHORCategory:English nouns#AUTHORCategory:English countable nouns#AUTHORCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#AUTHORCategory:Pages with entries#AUTHORCategory:Pages with 3 entries#AUTHOR

1. The originator or creator of a work, especially of a literary composition; or, one of the creators of a collaborative work.

   The copyright of any original writing belongs initially and properly to its author.Category:English terms with usage examples#AUTHOR

   Have you read any Corinthian authors?Category:English terms with usage examples#AUTHOR

   This paper has three authors.Category:English terms with usage examples#AUTHOR

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Eternal King; thee, Author of all being.

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

   • 1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond‎:

     During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant […]

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
   • 1755 April 15, Samuel Johnson, “Preface”, in A Dictionary of the English Language: […], volume I (A–K), London: […] J[ohn] and P[aul] Knapton;  […], →OCLC:

     The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

   • 2025 September 6, Catherine Pearson, “She Started the Debate About Kids and Phones. Now She Wants to End It.”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 6 September 2025:

     [Jean] Twenge […] isn’t necessarily a household name like her sometimes collaborator Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and the author of the megahit “The Anxious Generation,” which has spent 75 weeks hovering near the top of the New York Times best-seller list.

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

   • 2025 September 27, Julia Jacobo, “Million-year-old skull could rewrite timeline of human origin, researchers say”, in ABC News‎, archived from the original on 14 February 2026:

     "The cranium is clearly plesiomorphic in overall form, presenting primitive traits shared by earlier hominins," the authors wrote.

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

2. (USCategory:American English#AUTHOR copyright lawCategory:en:Copyright#AUTHOR) The initial owner of the copyright to a work, especially a work made for hire or a work of corporate authorship.

   The author named on the copyright registration for the Android robot is Google Inc.Category:English terms with usage examples#AUTHOR

3. Someone who writes books for a living.
4. (obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#AUTHOR, criminal lawCategory:en:Criminal law#AUTHOR) Principal; the primary participant in a crime.
   • 1879, F. D. Morice, Pindar, chapter 10, page 158:

     We hear […] of fratricidal murders, and stern reprisals on their authors.

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

   • 1894, Franco-Siamese Mixed Court, The Case of Kieng Chek (Kham Muon) before the Franco-Siamese Mixed Court‎, Bangkok: n.p., page 4:

     Accomplices of a crime or an offence shall incur the same punishment as the authors of such a crime or offence, except when the law will have disposed otherwise.

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

5. (archaicCategory:English terms with archaic senses#AUTHOR) One's authority for something: an informant.
   • 1699, Seven new Colloquies translated out of Erasmus:

     Let me inform you en passant, Ladies, that those Villains the Heathens, as my Authors tell me, (and I thought it wou'd^[sic] not be amiss to communicate such a nice Observation to this House) used to call our Saviour Chrestus, and not Christus, by way of Contempt and Derision […]

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
   • a. 1895 (date written), Robert Louis Stevenson, “Winter on the Moors: 3. A Border Family.”, in S[idney] C[olvin], editor, Weir of Hermiston: An Unfinished Romance, London: Chatto and Windus […], published 1896, →OCLC, page 122:

     'Wanting the hat,' continues my author, Kirstie, whom I but haltingly follow, for she told this tale like one inspired, 'wanting guns, for there wasna twa grains o' pouder in the house, wi' nae mair weepons than their sticks into their hands, the fower o' them took the road.

     [T]here wasn't two grains of powder in the house, with no more weapons than their sticks into their hands, the four of them took the road.

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

6. (figurative) The creator or cause of anything.
   • 1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg, published March 1915, →OCLC, page 132:

     The other, standing nearly head-on toward the hunters, had not proved so good a mark, and though every spear struck not one entered the great heart. For a moment the huge bull stood trumpeting in rage and pain, casting about with its little eyes for the author of its hurt.

     Category:English terms with quotations#AUTHOR

Verb

author (third-person singular simple present authors, present participle authoring, simple past and past participle authored)Category:English lemmas#AUTHORCategory:English verbs#AUTHORCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#AUTHORCategory:Pages with entries#AUTHORCategory:Pages with 3 entries#AUTHOR

1. (chiefly USCategory:American English#AUTHOR, sometimes proscribedCategory:English proscribed terms#AUTHOR) To create a work as its author.

Anagrams

• Hotaru

Etymology

Late variant of auctor and autor under influence of descendants such as English author.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈau̯.tʰɔr]Category:Latin 2-syllable words#AUTHORCategory:Latin terms with IPA pronunciation#AUTHOR
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈaːu̯.tor]Category:Latin 2-syllable words#AUTHORCategory:Latin terms with IPA pronunciation#AUTHOR

Noun

author m (genitive authōris)Category:Latin lemmas#AUTHORCategory:Latin nouns#AUTHORCategory:Latin third declension nouns#AUTHORCategory:Latin masculine nouns in the third declension#AUTHORCategory:Latin entries with incorrect language header#AUTHORCategory:Latin masculine nouns#AUTHORCategory:Pages with entries#AUTHORCategory:Pages with 3 entries#AUTHOR; third declension

1. (New LatinCategory:New Latin#AUTHOR, proscribedCategory:Latin proscribed terms#AUTHOR) alternative form of auctor: source, creator, vendor, author, artist

References

• “author”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  “auctor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “auctor”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 184f..

Noun

authorCategory:Middle English alternative forms#AUTHORCategory:Middle English entries with incorrect language header#AUTHORCategory:Pages with entries#AUTHORCategory:Pages with 3 entries#AUTHOR

1. alternative form of auctour