Other forms: speakers
A speaker is the box that turns electricity into sound. The little one clipped to a bag in the park, the pair standing either side of the television, the grille at the top of your phone.
The older meaning is a person who is talking: a public speaker, the guest speaker at a conference, the previous speaker made a good point. It also means a person who uses a particular language — a native speaker of Portuguese, four hundred million Spanish speakers — and in that job it never means a machine, so a Spanish speaker is a person. With a capital letter, the Speaker runs a parliament and decides who talks next. Loudspeaker is the longer word for the device and turns up in announcements: the message came over the loudspeaker.
1nounspeakerA device that turns an electrical signal into sound.
“One speaker crackles whenever the bass comes in.”
2noungivingA person who is speaking, especially one giving a talk to an audience.
“The first speaker overran by twenty minutes.”
3nounusesA person who uses a particular language.
“The course is designed for speakers of Arabic.”
4nounpresidesThe person who presides over a parliament or assembly.
“The Speaker called the house to order.”
speaker is a sound device, or a person who speaks.
Speaker is speak plus -er, reshaped from Old English speca and spreca, "speaker", through Middle English speker, with Proto-Germanic *sprekô standing behind them. The word for the person is a thousand years older than any machine. The loudspeaker was named after the human, not the other way round.
Middle English
spekere
English, today
speaker
Built from
From Middle English spekere. From Middle English speker, spekere, an alteration (with change of suffix) of Old English speca, spreca (“speaker”), from Proto-Germanic sprekô (“speaker”), equivalent to speak + -er. Compare stq Spreeker (“speaker”), West Frisian sprekker (“speaker”), Dutch spreker (“speaker”), German Low German Spreker (“speaker”), German Sprecher (“speaker”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA