reader

Etymology

From Middle English reder, redar, redere, redare, from Old English rēdere, rǣdere (“a reader; scholar; diviner”), from Proto-West Germanic *rādāri, equivalent to read + -er. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Räider (“advisor”), Dutch rader (“advisor”), German Rater (“advisor”).

noun

1. A person who reads.
   an early reader, a talented reader
2. A person who reads a publication.
   10,000 weekly readers
3. A person who recites literary works, usually to an audience.
4. A proofreader.
5. A person employed by a publisher to read works submitted for publication and determine their merits.
   They were dog-eared by the hands of many a publisher's-reader and postman. 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VIII, in Capricornia, page 123
6. A position attached to aristocracy, or to the wealthy, with the task of reading aloud, often in a foreign language.
7. (chiefly Britain) A university lecturer ranking below a professor.
8. Any device that reads something.
   a card reader, a microfilm reader
9. A book of exercises to accompany a textbook.
10. An elementary textbook for those learning to read, especially for foreign languages.
    Appletons’ School Readers
11. A literary anthology.
12. A lay or minor cleric who reads lessons in a church service.
13. (advertising) A newspaper advertisement designed to look like a news article rather than a commercial solicitation.
14. (in the plural) Reading glasses.
15. (slang, gambling, in the plural) Marked playing cards used by cheaters.
    LUMINOUS READERS—Marked cards that can be read only through tinted glasses. 1961, United States. Congress. Senate. Government Operations, Gambling and Organized Crime, Parts 1, 2, 3. 87-1, page 286
    Of the 150,000,000 decks of cards sold each year in America, Scarne estimates that 1 percent get marked at some point. Yet, as he discovered in his 1972 gambling survey, only 2 percent of average players have any idea of how to detect these "readers." 1991, John Bowyer Bell, Barton Whaley, Cheating and Deception, page 185