An archaic word for a person who seizes, grasps, or takes hold of something; one who 'hents.'
Formed from 'hent' plus the agent suffix '-er,' creating a noun for 'one who hents.' This would have been a normal word formation in Middle English but is now purely archaic.
The '-er' suffix is one of the most productive in English—you can add it to almost any verb to make an agent noun (teach/teacher, run/runner, hent/henter). It's so useful that speakers created 'henter' even though the verb 'hent' is now obsolete!
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