Emily Dickinson Lexicon

OR, n.¹

A termination of Latin nouns, is a contraction of vir, a man, or from the same radix. The same word vir, is in our mother tongue, wer, and from this we have the English termination er. It denotes an agent, as in actor, creditor. We annex it to many words of English origin, as in lessor, as we do er to words of Latin and Gr. origin, as in astronomer, laborer. In general, or is annexed to words of Latin, and er to those of English origin.