rapporteur

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 2, 2012 is: rapporteur • \ra-por-TER\  • noun : a person who gives reports (as at a meeting of a learned society) Examples: He was selected to be the UN's rapporteur on nuclear energy. "In March, the U.N. Human Rights Council designated a special rapporteur, Ahmed Shaheed, to investigate and report on Iran's human rights violations, the first country-specific human rights rapporteur since the council's creation." -- From an article by Leonard A. Leo and Don Argue in the Sacramento Bee, October 31, 2011 Did you know? "Rapporteur" was adopted into English in the early 16th century and is a descendant of the Middle French verb "rapporter," meaning "to bring back, report, or refer." Other descendants of "rapporter" in English include "rapportage" (a rare synonym of "reportage," in the sense of "writing intended to give an account of observed or documented events") and "rapport" ("a harmonious relationship," as in "The young teacher had a good rapport with the students"). The words "report," "reporter," "reportage," etc., are also distant relatives of "rapporteur"; all can ultimately be traced back to the Latin prefix "re-," meaning "back, again, or against," and the Latin word "portare," meaning "to carry." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.