# author

Pronunciation: US say "AW-thur" /ˈɔ.θɚ/; UK say "AW-thuh" /ˈɔː.θə(ɹ)/

## Noun

1. A person who writes a book, article, report, or other work, or who writes books as a profession; also one of several creators of a shared work.
   - Simple: A person who writes a book, article, or report, or whose job is writing books.
   - _The author of the report thanked her research team in the introduction._
   - _Each author contributed a single chapter to the collected volume._
3. The creator or cause of anything; the source from which something arises.
   - Simple: The person or thing that makes something happen or come to exist.
   - _He became, in many eyes, the author of the nation's misfortunes._
   - _Critics named her the author of a quiet revolution in design._

## Verb

2. To create a work as its author; to write or compose it.
   - Simple: To write or create a book, report, or other work.
   - _He went on to author several influential papers on climate policy._
   - _Researchers who author studies must disclose their sources of funding._

## Noun

4. The source one relies on as authority for a statement; an informant. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A person you name as the source of what you know.
5. The principal in a crime; the main person who carries it out. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The main person who commits a crime.

## Other meanings

- (noun) The initial owner of the copyright in a work, especially one made for hire or created by a company.

## Origin

This word came into Middle English as auctour through Anglo-Norman and Old French, from Latin auctor, which is based on augeō ("to increase, originate"). The h, seen in Middle French autheur too, is not original to the Latin spelling; the OED credits it to influence from the word authentic. It is a doublet of auteur.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/author (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).