Register
REGISTER, a record of facts, proceedings, acts, events, names, etc., entered regularly for reference in a volume kept for that purpose, also the volume in which the entries are made. The Fr. registre is taken from the Med. Lat. registrum for regisium, Late Lat. regesta, things recorded, hence list, catalogue, from regerere, to carry or bear back, to transcribe, enter on a roll. For the keeping of public registers dealing with various subjects see REGISTRATION and the articles there referred to, and for the records of baptisms, marriages and burials made by a parish clergyman, see section Parish Registers below. The keeper of a register was, until the beginning of the 19th century, usually known as a " register," but that title has in Great Britain now been superseded by "registrar"; it still survives in the Lord Clerk Register, an officer of state in Scotland, nominally the official keeper of the national records, whose duties are performed by the Deputy Clerk Register. In the United States the title is still " register." The term " register " has also been applied to mechanical contrivances for the automatic registration or recording of figures, etc. (see CASH REGISTER), to a stop in an organ, to the compass of a voice or musical instrument, and also to an apparatus for regulating the in- and outflow of air, heat, steam, smoke or the like. Some of these instances of the application of the term are apparently due to a confusion in etymology, with Lat. regere, to rule, regulate.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
