interviewor

Interviewor is a rarely used variant spelling of interviewer, the person who asks questions and facilitates an information-gathering conversation. In standard English, interviewer is the preferred form; interviewor appears chiefly as a typographical variant, an archaic spelling, or in speculative or fictional contexts. The term derives from the verb interview, with the agentive suffix -or, similar to other English words such as conductor or emissary. Because English generally favors the -er suffix for occupations, interviewor remains uncommon in modern usage.

In practice, the conventional noun is interviewer. If a text intends to signify an automated or artificial agent that conducts interviews, writers typically use interviewer as well, or coin terms like “AI interviewer” or “interviewing agent” to clarify that the subject may be non-human. When interviewor is used, it should be defined on first use to avoid ambiguity.

In fiction or speculative writing, interviewor can function as a fictional device or character type—an entity designed to extract information through questioning. In discussions of software design or human–computer interaction, an automation concept might be described as an interviewor to emphasize its role rather than its form.

See also: interviewer, interview, interviewing.