different between reacher vs preacher

English

Etymology

reach +? -er

Noun

reacher (plural reachers)

1. A person who reaches.
   • 1985, Gordon Williams, Macbeth: text and performance (page 17)

     In their own lives they would not be reachers after crowns, and knew it.

2. A device used to reach something.
3. A sail, a kind of asymmetrical spinnaker.
   • 2005, J. Howard Williams, Love at First Sight: A Lifetime of Sailing on Galveston Bay

     Each tack was only for 100 yards and now we had the right sail while they had reachers.

4. (obsolete) An exaggeration.

   • I can hardly believe that Reacher, which another writeth of him, that “with the palms of his hands he could touch his knees, though he stood upright"

English

Etymology

From Middle English precher, prechere; partly equivalent to preach +? -er, and partly continuing Middle English prechour, prechiour, from Old French preecheor (French prêcheur), from Latin praedicator (“public praiser, proclaimer”). See preach.

Displaced native Old English bydel.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p?it???/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p?i?t???/
• Rhymes: -i?t??(?)
• Hyphenation: preach?er

Noun

preacher (plural preachers)

1. Someone who preaches a worldview, philosophy, or religion, especially someone who preaches the gospel; a clergyman or clergywoman.
   • 1859, George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Chapter 10:

     The born preacher we feel instinctively to be our foe. He may do some good to the wretches that have been struck down and lie gasping on the battlefield: he rouses antagonism in the strong.

Derived terms

• preacher bench
• preacher curl
• preacheress

Translations