What does enumerator mean?
An enumerator is a person whose task is to count, list, or gather information — most familiarly as an official employed to conduct a census, visiting households to record details of their occupants. The word also has a distinct life in computing, where an enumerator is an object that produces a sequence of values so that a program can step through them one at a time. Derived from the Latin numerus, meaning 'number', it entered English via the verb enumerate, 'to count or name one by one'. The human sense carries neutral, administrative connotations and appears mainly in official, academic, and journalistic contexts, with 'census taker' serving as the everyday equivalent in the United States. Whether describing a field worker tallying responses or code traversing a collection, an enumerator is fundamentally something that moves through items systematically, assigning each its place in an ordered count.
A person who counts or lists items, especially one employed to collect data from households or respondents in a census or survey.
"As an enumerator for the national survey, she interviewed families in twelve villages."
In American English, 'census taker' is the more common everyday equivalent for the census role.
In computing, an object or construct that generates a sequence of values, allowing a program to traverse a collection element by element.
"The method returns an enumerator that the caller can use to iterate through the results."
This sense is technical jargon, found mainly in software documentation and programming discussion.
Standard regular plural; used for both the person sense and, informally, multiple iterator objects.
"Enumerators across the region reported high response rates during the first week."
Every ten years, thousands of enumerators knock on doors across America — making this humble job title one of the largest temporary hiring events in the country.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of enumerator
Enumerator derives from the Latin verb enumerare, meaning 'to count out or recount', formed from e- ('out of') plus numerare ('to number'), itself rooted in the noun numerus, 'number'. The agent suffix -or yields 'one who counts'. English adopted the related verb enumerate in the early 17th century, with enumerator following as its agent noun. It shares this Latin root with words such as number, numerical, and numerous, all tracing back to numerus.
Related word forms
How enumerator is actually used
The term is chiefly formal or technical; in everyday speech, 'census taker' is more common in American English for the first sense. The computing sense is jargon specific to software development.
Easily confused with enumerator
Enumeration is the act or process of counting or listing things, while an enumerator is the person (or computing object) that performs it.