COMMENTATOR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does commentator mean? 

• COMMENTATOR (noun)
  The noun COMMENTATOR has 2 senses:

1. an expert who observes and comments on something

2. a writer who reports and analyzes events of the day

  Familiarity information: COMMENTATOR used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COMMENTATOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An expert who observes and comments on something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

commentator; observer

Hypernyms ("commentator" is a kind of...):

expert (a person with special knowledge or ability who performs skillfully)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "commentator"):

annotator (a commentator who writes notes to a text)

Derivation:

commentate (serve as a commentator, as in sportscasting)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A writer who reports and analyzes events of the day

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

commentator; reviewer

Hypernyms ("commentator" is a kind of...):

author; writer (writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay))

Derivation:

commentate (make a commentary on)

 Context examples 

I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day—as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I soon discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to the rest of the company, and had never seen or heard of them before; and I had a whisper from a ghost who shall be nameless, that these commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from their principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of those authors to posterity.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators; but these were so numerous, that some hundreds were forced to attend in the court, and outward rooms of the palace.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)