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In thermodynamics, the evaporator evaporates and the condenser condenses a substance. While these devices have the same ending in other languages (e.g. French and German), how did it come to pass that these aren't called evaporator and condensator or evaporenser and condenser in English? Is this just a curious artifact of random change over time?

Martin
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  • A quick look at the etymologies should tell you what these words / their precursors looked like when they were assimilated into English. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '20 at 15:02
  • Thank you for the response, @Edwin Ashworth. Both precursors come from latin (condenso and evaporo) but only one follows the rule posted in the linked answer (https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4733/what-s-the-rule-for-adding-er-vs-or-when-forming-an-agent-noun-from-a-ver). As such, the question has not yet been answered and should be reopened. – Martin Jul 10 '20 at 13:41
  • I didn't CV for the reason most did, but for lack of easily found research presented with the question with attributed link/s. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 10 '20 at 13:54
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    Apparently, the base words evaporate and condense arrived in English in the same forms they have now. Far more -ator agent nouns (The Free Dictionary lists 873 words ending in -ator with few false positives) are found than -ater agent nouns (correspondingly 297, with many false positives like breakwater). The ratio is reversed with -sor and -ser. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 10 '20 at 14:08

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