gazetteer
Meanings
Plural: gazetteers
Noun
- a journalist who writes for a gazette
- a geographical dictionary (as at the back of an atlas)
- A person who writes for a gazette or newspaper; a journalist; (specifically) a journalist engaged by a government.
- A gazette, a newspaper.
- A dictionary or index of geographical locations.
- A similar descriptive list (often alphabetical) of information on other subjects.
Verb
- Synonym of gazette (“to announce the status of (someone) in an official gazette”).
- To report about (someone) in a gazette or newspaper.
- To describe the geography of (a country or other place) in a gazetteer (etymology 2, noun sense 1).
Origin / Etymology
The noun is borrowed from French gazettier (archaic), gazetier (“journalist, newspaperman”) + English -eer (suffix forming agent nouns denoting people associated with or engaged in a specified activities). Gazettier, gazetier are derived from gazette (“newspaper”) + -ier (suffix denoting a profession); and gazette from Italian gazzetta, from Venetan gazeta, from gazeta dele novità (literally “a gazeta of news”) (referring to the cost of the newspaper, a gazeta being a Venetian coin of little value, whence English gazet (obsolete)), possibly a diminutive of Latin gaza (“riches, treasure; treasury”), ultimately from Old Median *ganǰam (“treasure; wealth”). The English word is analysable as gazette + -eer.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Synonyms
Scrabble Score: 19
gazetteer is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordgazetteer is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
gazetteer is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary