sitter

C2+ Topic:People & Society

US /ˈsɪtər/ UK /ˈsɪtə/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a person who looks after a child, pet, or house, or who poses for a portrait

We hired a sitter so we could attend the dinner.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a person who looks after a... minderbabysittercaretakermodel poser guard

Word family

Related forms sit seat sitting

Etymology

From sit (from Old English sittan, of Germanic origin, from Proto-Indo-European *sed- 'to sit') plus the agentive suffix -er.

sittan Old English *sed- Proto-Indo-European

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society Word Formation & Derivatives

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# sitter

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

## Meanings
1. a person who looks after a child, pet, or house, or who poses for a portrait

## Examples
- We hired a sitter so we could attend the dinner.

## Synonyms
- minder
- babysitter
- caretaker
- model
- poser
- guard

## Related Forms
- sit
- seat
- sitting

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: sittan
- Root: *sed-

## Etymology
From sit (from Old English sittan, of Germanic origin, from Proto-Indo-European *sed- 'to sit') plus the agentive suffix -er.

## AI Etymology
Sitter comes from sit (from Old English sittan, of Germanic origin, from Proto-Indo-European *sed- 'to sit') plus the agentive suffix -er. The historical chain includes Old English sittan and Proto-Indo-European *sed-. Older glosses in the chain include "to sit", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, sitter is best read as 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 who looks after a child, pet, or house, or who poses for a portrait". related forms include sit, seat, and sitting. 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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sitter

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