-grapher

comb. form forming nouns denoting a person concerned with a subject (geographer; radiographer).
Etymology: from or after Gk - graphos writer + -ER(1)

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\\grəfə(r), sometimes ˌgraf- when there is a corresponding verb form in “-graph”\ noun combining form (-s)

Etymology: Late Latin -graphus one that writes (such) material or in (such) a way (from Greek -graphos, from -graphos written, writing) + English -er

: one that writes about (specified) material or in a (specified) way

craniographer

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comb. form indicating a person concerned with a subject denoted by a noun ending in -graphy (such as geographer corresponding to geography)

Origin:

from Greek -graphos ‘writer’ + -er I

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-grapher

(grəfə(r))

an ending of many Eng. words of Greek derivation. First found in the earlier half of the 16th c. The analogy of astronom-er (really f. astronomy, but having the appearance of being f. L. astronom-us + -er¹) naturally suggested the use of the suffix -er as a means of anglicizing L. words in -ˈographus without altering their rhythm, as in cosmographer (recorded 1527). In the 16th c. there also occur a few derivatives in -er from nouns in -graphy, as geographier (1542), chronographier (1548), but these were soon superseded by the forms in -grapher. (In chirographer, q.v., the ending has a different source.) From the latter part of the 16th c. the formation with -grapher has been the normal mode both of anglicizing a real or assumed Gr. word in -γράϕος (see -graph) denoting a personal agent, and of providing a personal designation correlative to n. in -graphy denoting an art or science. It would often be impossible to determine in which of these two ways an individual word actually originated; but the question is unimportant, because Gr. words in -γράϕος were themselves influenced in sense by their derivatives in -γραϕία, so that, e.g. γεωγράϕος meant not so much ‘one who describes the earth’ as ‘one versed in γεωγραϕία’.

The suffix -ist has sometimes been used instead of -er in anglicizing Gr. words in -γράϕος or forming derivatives from ns. in -graphy; cf. biographist for the more usual biographer; telegraphist is more common than telegrapher.