Today we’ll be talking about nouns of agency and profession. These are nouns that derive from verbs of action and denote the doer of the action. For example a teacher is someone who teaches and an actor is someone who acts.
Most nouns of agency refer to humans, but some refer to things as we’re just about to see.
Nouns Referring Primarily to People
Nouns of agency and profession are often formed by means of the endings –er and –or. Here are some examples of nouns referring primarily to people:
a writer is someone who writes
a listener is someone who listens
an admirer is someone who admires
a worker is someone who works
a murderer is someone who murders
Some of them may refer to nonhumans in some contexts, though. For example in programming a listener is a piece of code that listens to events and reacts accordingly.
Nouns Referring Primarily to Things
Then there are nouns of agency that refer primarily to things. Here are some examples:
a slicer is a device that slices bread
a silencer is a device that silences a gun
a pacifier is a rubber object that is supposed to pacify children
a slider is a something that slides
a softener is a substance that softens something
Nouns Referring to Both People and Things
Many nouns of agency can refer to both humans and things:
a dishwasher is a device that washes dishes or a person who washes dishes in a restaurant
a mixer is a device that mixes things or a person who mixes sounds during a recording
a protector is a device that protects a part of the body or a person who protects something or someone
a catcher is a person or thing that catches something
a grinder is a person or thing that grinds something
a plotter is a device that plots a graph or a person who plots something
