Forming agent nouns from nouns and verbs, esp. also names of persons engaged in a trade or profession. (a) Inherited from OE: e.g. bōk-ere scribe [OE bōc-ere, from bōc document, charter], salt-ere……
In the gen.sg.masc. & neut. of the indefinite (strong) declension [OE -es], only in very early ME (later dropped). Relics of this inflection survive in a number of set phrases, e.g. eies weies,……
