Starter comes from the verb 'start' (Old English 'styrtan', to leap up, move suddenly) plus the agentive suffix '-er', denoting one who or that which starts something. The historical chain includes Old English styrtan. The quoted older senses, "start", "styrtan", and "-er", supply the semantic anchors for starter. The formation is best read as suffixal and borrowed: the word starter carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a person or device that begins something; a first course of a meal". Related English forms include start and starting. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.