Cantor

//ˈkæntɔː(ɹ)// name, noun

name, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    singer, especially someone who takes a special role of singing or song leading at a ceremony

    "The cantor's place in church is on the right of the choir."

  2. 2
    the official of a synagogue who conducts the liturgical part of the service and sings or chants the prayers intended to be performed as solos wordnet
  3. 3
    A prayer leader in a Jewish service; a hazzan Judaism
  4. 4
    the musical director of a choir wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Example

More examples

"Some of you may not have heard of him before, but Georg Cantor was undoubtedly one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin cantor, agent noun from perfect passive participle cantus, from verb canere (“to sing”) + agent suffix -or. Doublet of chanter.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.