• (RP) IPA: /ˈɔː.θə/
• (America) IPA: /ˈɔ.θɚ/
• (cot-caught) IPA: /ˈɑ.θɚ/
• (obsolete) IPA: /ˈɒː.təɹ/

author (plural authors)

1. The originator or creator of a work, especially of a literary composition.

   The copyright of any original writing belongs initially and properly to its author.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 3”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     Eternal King; thee, Author of all being.

   • 1661, John Fell (bishop), The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond ↗

     During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant […]

   • The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

   1. (with definite article: "the author") I, me. used in academic articles instead of a first-person pronoun.

   Have you read any Corinthian authors?

   • 1661, John Fell (bishop), The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond ↗

     During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant […]

2. Someone who writes books for a living.
3. (obsolete) One's authority for something: an informant.
   • 1699, Seven new Colloquies translated out of Erasmus

     Let me inform you en passant, Ladies, that those Villains the Heathens, as my Authors tell me, (and I thought it wou'd^[sic] not be amiss to communicate such a nice Observation to this House) used to call our Saviour Chrestus, and not Christus, by way of Contempt and Derision […]

• (creator of a work) bookwright, creator, artist, subcreator, fabulator, writer

• authorization or authorisation
• authority
• authorship
• auteur

• French: auteur, auteure, autrice
• German: Autor, Autorin, Verfasser, Verfasserin
• Italian: autore, autrice
• Portuguese: autor
• Russian: а́втор
• Spanish: autor, autora, escritor, escritora

author (authors, present participle authoring; past and past participle authored)

1. (chiefly, US, sometimes, proscribed) To create a work as its author.

• French: écrire, créer
• Italian: creare
• Spanish: escribir