-eer

suff.

One associated with, concerned with, or engaged in: balladeer.

[French -ier, from Old French, from Latin -ārius, -ary.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

-eer

-ier

suffix

1. (forming nouns) indicating a person who is concerned with or who does something specified: auctioneer; engineer; profiteer; mutineer.

2. (forming verbs) to be concerned with something specified: electioneer.

[from Old French -ier, from Latin -arius -ary]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

EER

energy efficiency ratio.

e'er

(ɛər)

adv. Chiefly Literary.

ever.

[1595–1605]

-eer

a noun-forming suffix occurring orig. in loanwords from French (buccaneer; mutineer; pioneer) and productive in the formation of English nouns denoting persons who produce, handle, or are otherwise associated with the referent of the base word (auctioneer; engineer; mountaineer; pamphleteer); now frequently pejorative (profiteer; racketeer). Compare -ary, -er², -ier².

[< French, Middle French -ier (Old French < Latin -ārius -ary as suffix of personal nouns); in some nouns replacing earlier suffixes (see engineer, charioteer) or the French suffix -aire -aire (see musketeer, volunteer)]