author

• aucthor, aucthour, auctor, auctour, auctoure, authour, authoure, autor, autour, autoure (obsolete)

From Middle English auctour, from Anglo-Norman autour, from Old French autor, from Latin auctor, from augeō (“to increase, originate”). The h, also found in Middle French autheur, is unetymological as there is no h in the original Latin spelling. The OED attributes the h to contamination by authentic.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɔː.θə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɔ.θɚ/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈɑ.θɚ/
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /ˈɒː.təɹ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɔːθə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: au‧thor

author (plural authors)

1. The originator or creator of a work, especially of a literary composition.

   The copyright of any original writing belongs initially and properly to its author.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

     Eternal King; thee, Author of all being.

   • 1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond

     During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant […]

   • 1755, Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language Preface

     The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

   Have you read any Corinthian authors?

   • 1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond

     During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant […]

2. Someone who writes books for a living.
3. (obsolete, criminal law) Principal.
   • 1894, Franco-Siamese Mixed Court, The Case of Kieng Chek (Kham Muon) before the Franco-Siamese Mixed Court‎, Bangkok: n.p., page 4:

     Accomplices of a crime or an offence shall incur the same punishment as the authors of such a crime or offence, except when the law will have disposed otherwise.

4. (obsolete) One's authority for something: an informant.
   • 1699, Seven new Colloquies translated out of Erasmus

     Let me inform you en passant, Ladies, that those Villains the Heathens, as my Authors tell me, (and I thought it wou'd^[sic] not be amiss to communicate such a nice Observation to this House) used to call our Saviour Chrestus, and not Christus, by way of Contempt and Derision […]

• (creator of a work): bookwright, creator, artist, subcreator, fabulator, writer

author (third-person singular simple present authors, present participle authoring, simple past and past participle authored)

1. (chiefly US, sometimes proscribed) To create a work as its author.

• authorable

• Hotaru

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈau̯.tʰor/, [ˈäu̯t̪ʰɔr]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈau̯.tor/, [ˈäːu̯t̪or]

author m (genitive authōris); third declension

1. (proscribed) Alternative form of auctor

Third-declension noun.

• “author”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  “auctor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• auctor in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 184f.

author

1. Alternative form of auctour