# commentator
## English
### Alternative forms

* commentatour (archaic)

### Etymology

In form, from Middle English commentator, from Latin commentātor (“author, inventor, interpreter, jailer”), from commentātus + -or (“-er: forming agent nouns”), from commentāri (“to ponder, to study, to write upon”), from comminīscor (“to think over, to invent”) + -tārī (“to frequently be ~ed”). In meaning, influenced by comment and commentary.

### Pronunciation

* (US) IPA: /ˈkɑmənˌteɪtəɹ/
* (UK) IPA: /ˈkɒmənˌteɪtə/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)

### Noun

commentator (plural commentators)
* A person who makes a commentary, particularly
** (rare, obsolete) Synonym of historian or chronicler, a person who compiles an annotated history. [1475]
** A person who compiles explanations and critical notes on a text. [1641]
** (law) A person who compiles explanations of the law, particularly (historical) comparatively innovative European jurists in the 14th century, as opposed to earlier glossators.
*** 2009, Randall Lesaffer, European Legal History: A Cultural and Political Perspective, →ISBN, page 257:It would be well into the fourteenth century before the commentators came into their own.
** (Christianity) A person who compiles explanations of biblical passages.
** (media, sports) A person who provides an instantaneous description of a public event, particularly a sporting event, for a mass media audience. [1928]
** (media) A person who provides analysis or opinion on current events, especially for a mass media audience. [1938]
*** 2025 February 19, Christian Wolmar, “Reeves talks of 'growth' but pays lip service to the railway”, in RAIL, number 1029, page 35:Specifically, and unforgivably, she restarted the Heathrow Third Runway bandwagon, which had been stalled for more than a decade and even declared dead by most commentators.

#### Synonyms

* (expositor on law or scripture): interpreter (obsolete)

#### Derived terms

* cocommentator
* color commentator
* commentate
* commentatorship
* commentatress
* subcommentator
* supercommentator

#### Related terms

* commentary

#### Translations
### References

* “commentator, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

## Latin
### Etymology 1

From commentor +‎ -tor. In the medieval sense of “jailer”, from the jailer’s duty of writing commentārii (“memoranda”) with records of those held in custody.

#### Noun

commentātor m (genitive commentātōris); third declension
* (Late Latin) inventor, author
* (Late Latin) interpreter
* (Medieval Latin) jailer

##### Declension

Third-declension noun.

##### Coordinate terms

* commentātrīx

### Etymology 2
#### Verb

commentātor
* second/third-person singular future active imperative of commentor

### References

* “commentator”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* "commentator", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
* commentator in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* Souter, Alexander (1949) “commentator”, in A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D.‎, 1st edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, published 1957, page 62
* Niermeyer, Jan Frederik (1976) “commentator”, in Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden, Boston: E. J. Brill, page 217
* commentator in Ramminger, Johann (2016 July 16 (last accessed)) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎, pre-publication website, 2005-2016