German words ending in -or

A noun ending in -or is der. The deck holds no counter-example.

der Klaus the character this deck pins every der-word on

-or is the Latin agent ending, the one that names the doer: der Autor, der Direktor, der Professor, der Doktor. It came into German masculine and stayed masculine, and it kept doing the same job on machines as on people. That is why der Motor and der Monitor sit in the same list as der Professor.

The clearest proof that it is still a live suffix is that it has a feminine partner. Add -in and the word changes gender with it: die Autorin, die Direktorin, die Professorin. If a word takes -orin, the -or form is der.

Watch the stress in the plural, because it moves and the written word does not warn you: der Professor becomes die Professoren, der Motor becomes die Motoren. The gender does not move with it.

Worked examples

der Motor engine
der Professor professor
der Direktor director
der Autor author
der Monitor monitor

Measured on this deck

100% of the 9 nouns ending in -or are der

Every -or noun in this deck is der, all 9 of them: 100 percent. The figure is measured on a B1 syllabus, not on the whole language.

der Doktor die Doktoren
der Motor
der Autor die Autoren
der Direktor die Direktoren
der Faktor die Faktoren
der Humor die Humore
der Korridor die Korridore
der Monitor
der Professor die Professoren

Looks like it, is not

This ends in the same two letters and is not the agent suffix. It is a native German word, it is not the one that does the verb, and it should not be read as an exception to this page.

das Tor die Tore

What a card looks like

Motor

Try it

The drill below is the mixed deck, and der Doktor is the only -or card in it. Check for the ending rather than the meaning: the list above is full of -or words naming no doer at all, and they are masculine along with the rest.

Wohnung