driver
Pluraldrivers
- 1Someone who operates a powered vehicle, such as a car, bus, truck, train, or forklift.
The truck driver logged his hours before starting the long haul north.
Forklift drivers must be certified before working in the warehouse.
UsageUsually after a noun naming the vehicle: truck driver, bus driver. Your driver often means someone hired to drive you.
Oppositepassenger
- 2A factor that contributes to something or helps bring it about; a cause.
Rising energy costs have been a key driver of inflation this year.
For many small towns, tourism has become the main driver of the local economy.
UsageUsually driver of + the result: a key driver of growth. Common in reports; in plainer writing, cause or factor often reads better.
Similarfactor, cause, catalyst, engine, force
Note
Pedro Baptista and his co-authors (2024) write of "the main drivers of inflation" and report that consumers still saw other input costs as "the strongest driver overall."
- 3A program that lets a computer's operating system communicate with and control a particular hardware device or type of device.
Like an adapter that lets a plug made for one country fit another country's outlet.
Windows automatically downloaded the correct driver for the scanner.
Outdated drivers can cause the device to crash unexpectedly.
UsagePeople usually install or update a driver. Name the device in front or after for: a printer driver, a driver for the scanner.
Note
Short for device driver, and usually written for one device or family of devices, which is why a new printer or scanner often needs its own. It translates the operating system's generic requests into the device's specific commands, so applications usually need not deal with the hardware directly.
- 4A person who drives something along, such as animals, a cart, or a project, by steering, urging, or pushing it.
He was the driver behind the company's expansion into new markets.
The sled's driver shouted commands to the dogs as they raced across the frozen lake.
UsageOften with a noun in front naming what is driven (a pony driver), or as the driver behind a plan or change.
Similarinstigator
Less common meanings
- 5A golf club designed to hit the ball over a great distance.
A new titanium driver added twenty yards to his tee shots.
Most amateurs struggle to control their drivers off the tee.
UsageGolfers hit their driver off the tee, and the shot it makes is a drive.
Note
The club for the tee shot, built for distance: the lowest-lofted of the woods, with a long shaft and a large head. Its old relative the brassey "much resembled the driver," as Robert Marshall's The Haunted Major (1902) puts it.
- 6The chief sound-producing component in a loudspeaker or headphones, converting electrical input into sound.
The studio monitor pairs a large bass driver with a small tweeter.
High-end headphones often combine several drivers per side.
Similartransducer, speaker
Note
In audio, the unit that actually makes the sound: it turns a varying electrical signal into the motion of a diaphragm, which pushes the air. The cabinet is only the box, and the drivers sit inside it. Multi-way speakers divide the frequency range among separate drivers, pairing a large bass driver with a small tweeter.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- A driver is the complete sound-producing unit, including moving components and stationary components such as its magnet and frame. mtx.com
- The electrical input produces diaphragm movement that moves air and creates sound. yamaha.com
- The cabinet is the enclosure housing the drivers. carvinaudio.com
- Multi-way speakers allocate different frequency ranges to separate drivers. en.wikipedia.org
- Bass drivers are generally larger than tweeters. carvinaudio.com
- 7Anything that powers or moves something else, especially the part of a mechanism that sets another part in motion.
In this mechanism, the rotating cam serves as the driver for the lever.
In a gear train, the driver turns the next gear, which passes the motion along to the rest of the mechanism.
- 8A screwdriver, a nutdriver, or a bit for turning screws or nuts, a category that includes nutsetters.
The kit came with a magnetic driver and a set of bits.
Mechanics keep several drivers within reach for different fasteners.
Similarscrewdriver
- 9A person at the controls of an aircraft; a pilot.
The squadron's best driver could land a jet in almost any weather.
After twenty years as a Navy fighter driver, he found that flying a desk was far less exciting.
UsageOften with the aircraft in front: fighter driver, jet driver. Casual insider talk; in a report or job title, use pilot.
Note
Aviation slang that treats an aircraft as one more thing to be steered: the agent noun built from drive plus -er, carried from the general "one who drives" sense into the cockpit. It belongs to the talk of aircrews and aviation enthusiasts, not to official terminology, where pilot remains the word.
- 10A person who drives livestock from one place to another; a drover.
In the 1870s, a cattle driver might spend months on the trail, moving a herd north to the railroad.
Cattle drivers spent weeks moving the herd to market.
UsageUsually with the animal in front: a cattle driver. Drover means much the same.
Similardrover, herder, herdsman
Note
Moving herds overland gives the word an outdoor, working setting. W. F. Cude's "Trail driving to Kansas and elsewhere" (1920) recalls the Texas cattle drives to Kansas in the years before railroads reached the cattle ranges. For the long overland journey itself, the cowhands' word was trail driving.
- 11A driving wheel of a locomotive, one of the powered wheels that move the engine.
- 12A hammer or mallet used to drive something in or into place, such as a cooper's tool for hoops.
- 13On a square-rigged ship, the fore-and-aft sail set from a gaff on the aftmost mast; a spanker.
- 14A tamping iron; a bar used to pack down material such as gravel or a blasting charge.
- 15A cooper's hammer used for driving hoops onto a barrel.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English drivere (also spelled dryvere or dryvare), equivalent to drive plus the suffix -er. It is related to Dutch drijver, German Treiber, and Swedish drivare, all meaning "driver".
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Driver derives from Middle English drivere, with variants dryvere and dryvare, and is equivalent to drive plus -er. en.wiktionary.org
- Driver is related to Dutch drijver, German Treiber, and Swedish drivare, each meaning driver. en.wiktionary.org