Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

-ster

-ster. [OE. & AS. -estre, -istre.] A suffix denoting the agent (originally a woman), especially a person who does something with skill or as an occupation; as in spinster (originally, a woman who spins), songster, baxter (= bakester), youngster.

☞ Brewing, baking, and weaving were formerly feminine labors, and consequently brewster, baxter, and webster meant, originally, the woman (not the man) who brews, bakes, or weaves. When men began to perform these duties the feminine appellations were retained.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.