reader

plural readers

1. A person who reads.

   an early reader, a talented reader

2. A person who reads a publication.

   10,000 weekly readers

   1 more example

   In its May 1965 issue, Life magazine condemned skateboards as a “menace to limb and even to life,” and cautioned readers about riders who “take over the paths made for peaceful strollers.”

   2018 July 13, Jaime Marie Davis, “How photographers have captured skateboarding through generations”, in CNN, archived from the original on 18 Mar 2025

3. A person who recites literary works, usually to an audience.
4. A proofreader.

   Synonyms: proofreader, printer's reader

5. A person employed by a publisher to read works submitted for publication and determine their merits.

   They were dog-eared by the hands of many a publisher's-reader and postman.

   1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VIII, in Capricornia, page 123

   Synonyms: publisher's reader, first reader

6. A position attached to aristocracy, or to the wealthy, with the task of reading aloud, often in a foreign language.

   "I am commissioned by the Queen to offer you the place of Italian reader; and I assure you the offer was made with many kind expressions of interest. You will enter upon the duties, which are almost nominal, immediately."

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 83–84

7. UKA university lecturer ranking below a professor.
8. Any device that reads something.

   a card reader, a microfilm reader

   2 more examples

   The reMarkable PDF reader is really targeted at the digital writing market, rather than the digital reading market, though most serious e-readers support pens for annotations and signatures.

   2019 June 27, Jack Schofield, “What’s the best cheap tablet or e-reader for PDF files?”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 27 Apr 2023

   A quick search on Kaiser's website, there was nothing that talked about plate readers or a usage policy.

   2023 December 1, Da Lin, “Privacy advocates accuse Kaiser of not following state law on license plate readers”, in CBS News, archived from the original on 22 Feb 2024

9. A book of exercises to accompany a textbook.
10. An elementary textbook for those learning to read, in a native language or a foreign language.

    Appletons’ School Readers

    1 more example

    [Editor David W. Blight said:] In 1795, after producing his own geography textbook, modeled on Jedidiah Morse’s famous Geography (1784), Bingham resigned as a teacher in the Boston schools, opened a bookstore on Cornhill Street in Boston, and devoted himself to producing schoolbooks. In Boston in 1797, he published the first of approximately 23 editions of The Columbian Orator. By the first two decades of the nineteenth century, in vast stretches of rural America, including the South, Bingham’s readers joined the Bible and an occasional almanac as the only books in many homesteads. […] Finally, Bingham saw the early American republic as a new political beginning for humankind, and his more than one million schoolbooks sold across the land were designed to produce republican citizens. The Columbian Orator was an elocution manual as well as a reader for school children in the new republic.

    1997 [1797], David W. Blight, “Editor's Introduction: The Peculiar Dialogue Between Caleb Bingham and Frederick Douglass”, in Caleb Bingham, edited by David W. Blight, The Columbian Orator, Bicentennial Edition (1997 republishing), New York University Press, →ISBN

11. A literary anthology.

    A good bedtime reader should entertain and delight, and that's what I find in Girard Kent's The Boy Harleqin ^([sic]) and Other Stories.

    1981 December 1, Thomas Hopkinson, “Streetboy Dreams; The Boy Harlequin and Other Stories (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 20, page 10

12. A lay or minor cleric who reads lessons in a church service.
13. advertisingA newspaper advertisement designed to look like a news article rather than a commercial solicitation.

    Synonyms: reading notice

14. in pluralReading glasses.
15. in pluralslanggamblingMarked playing cards used by cheaters.

    LUMINOUS READERS—Marked cards that can be read only through tinted glasses.

    1961, United States. Congress. Senate. Government Operations, Gambling and Organized Crime, Parts 1, 2, 3. 87-1, page 286

    1 more example

    Of the 150,000,000 decks of cards sold each year in America, Scarne estimates that 1 percent get marked at some point. Yet, as he discovered in his 1972 gambling survey, only 2 percent of average players have any idea of how to detect these "readers."

    1991, John Bowyer Bell, Barton Whaley, Cheating and Deception, page 185

16. obsoleteslangA wallet or pocketbook.

    […] Q was a Queer-screen, that served as a blind; / R was a Reader, with flimsies well lined; […]

    1846, George William MacArthur Reynolds, The Mysteries of London, page 60

17. At Eton College, a lesson for which pupils are sent back to their separate school houses.

plural Readers

1. alternativelifestyleAlternative form of reader (“a lay or minor cleric who reads lessons in a church service”).

1. A surname
2. A census-designated place in Nevada County and Ouachita County, Arkansas, United States.
3. An unincorporated community in Western Mound Township, Macoupin County, Illinois, United States.
4. A census-designated place in Wetzel County, West Virginia, United States, named after the Reader Run creek.