Definition of PURVEYOR

purveyor

Meanings

Plural: purveyors

Noun

  • someone who supplies provisions (especially food)
  • One who purveys (“furnishes, provides; gets, procures”); a supplier; specifically, one in the business of supplying food or other necessary material goods; a provisioner.
  • One who purveys (“furnishes, provides; gets, procures”); a supplier; specifically, one in the business of supplying food or other necessary material goods; a provisioner.
  • An officer who obtained provisions such as accommodation and food for the household of a monarch or some other high-ranking person; also, an officer in charge of obtaining provisions for an army, a city, etc.
  • A person or group that promotes or spreads an idea, a viewpoint, etc.
  • One who arranges or prepares something; an arranger, an orchestrator, a preparer.

Origin / Etymology

From Middle English purveiour (“one who procures or supplies necessities, provider; city, military, religious, or household employee in charge of provisions, steward; one in charge, overseer; one who goes ahead to prepare the way, forerunner; one who arranges accommodations for a traveller; (figurative) one who gathers greedily”), from Anglo-Norman purveour, Middle French pourveur, pourvoyeur, and (chiefly Northern) Old French purveour (“one who procures or supplies necessities or things in general; one who arranges or prepares something”) (modern French pourvoyeur), from porveoir, purveer, purveir (“to equip, furnish, provide, purvey; to foresee; to look at; to obtain, procure”) (modern French pourvoir) + -or (suffix forming agent nouns). Porveoir is derived from Latin prōvidēre, the present active infinitive of prōvideō (“to care for, look after; to foresee; to provide, see to”), from prō- (prefix meaning ‘before; forward’) + videō (“to see; to look out for, care for, provide, see to”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see”)). By surface analysis, purvey + -or (suffix forming agent nouns denoting people or things which do the actions denoted by the stems). Doublet of proveditor and provedore.

Scrabble Score: 16

purveyor is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
purveyor is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
purveyor is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 18

purveyor is a valid Words With Friends word