discerptor

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈsɜːp.tə/

Noun

discerptor (plural discerptors)

1. (formal, rare) A person who pulls something apart; a person who divides or separates.
   • post 1750, Emanuel Swedenborg, unknown translator, Arcana Cœlestia (Latin), volume 2, published 1750.

     The discerptors said they are so delighted to punish that they are not willing to desist, even should it go on to eternity.

   • 1904, W.T.B., “Zoological Nomenclature”, in Nature, volume 69, pages 464–5:

     Moreover, if the type be worked out historically, "lectularius" is equally invalid; the first discerptor was Fabricius, who, in a perfectly straightforward manner, removed our species from Cimex to form a part of his new genus Acanthia

   • 1959, Douglas Young, “Miltonic Light on Professor Denys Page's Homeric Theory”, in Greece & Rome, volume 6, number 1, pages 96–108:

     If, at some remote future period, the discerptors of Milton should exhaust the resources of post-Wolfian Homeric theorizing, they may still find a fresh ruse or two in the tactical manuals of the Baconian assailants […]

Anagrams

• descriptor, predictors