ruiner

C2+ Topic:People & Society

US /ˈruɪnɚ/ UK /ˈruːɪnə/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a person or thing that ruins or destroys something

Gossip was the ruiner of more than one good friendship.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a person or thing that... destroyer wrecker spoilerdespoiler

Opposites

restorer builder preserver

Word family

Related forms ruin ruination ruinous

Etymology

From ruin + -er, from Old French ruine, from Latin ruina ('a collapse'), from ruere ('to fall, rush down').

ruina Latin ruere Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# ruiner

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈruɪnɚ/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈruːɪnə/

## Meanings
1. a person or thing that ruins or destroys something

## Examples
- Gossip was the ruiner of more than one good friendship.

## Synonyms
- destroyer
- wrecker
- spoiler
- despoiler

## Antonyms
- restorer
- builder
- preserver

## Related Forms
- ruin
- ruination
- ruinous

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: ruina
- Root: ruere

## Etymology
From ruin + -er, from Old French ruine, from Latin ruina ('a collapse'), from ruere ('to fall, rush down').

## AI Etymology
Ruiner comes from ruin + -er, from Old French ruine, from Latin ruina ('a collapse'), from ruere ('to fall, rush down'). The historical chain includes Latin ruina and Latin ruere. Older glosses in the chain include "a collapse" and "to fall, rush down", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, ruiner is best read as compound, suffixal formation, and borrowing, yielding an English noun shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun, with the sense "a person or thing that ruins or destroys something". related forms include ruin, ruination, and ruinous. The result is an English noun whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- People & Society
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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