adviser

noun

ad·​vis·​er əd-ˈvī-zər 

variants or advisor

: someone who gives advice

a financial/investment adviser

She was not signing on as a domestic or foreign-policy adviser …

—Peggy Noonan

In this meeting, Clifford, who had been a senior Truman aide and an adviser to Kennedy, used George Ball's memorandums in pleading that the war could not be won.

—Sidney Blumenthal

In December, she and her thesis advisor, Neal Evans, used the camera, attached to a 50-inch telescope, to look for infant stars in a giant molecular cloud in the constellation Orion.

—Andrew Chaikin

In a real sense, the emperor's astronomical ministers functioned like advisors in a modern president's cabinet, advising him on how best to conduct the affairs of state in a harmonious and effective manner.

—Laurence A. Marschall

Did you know?

What's the difference between adviser and advisor?

Adviser or advisor? It doesn't matter what your computer's spellcheck tells you, adviser and advisor are both correct. Although there is enough overlap between these two words that they are generally considered simply to be different ways to spell the same word, there are some cases in which one tends to be used more often than the other. Some people feel that advisor is more formal, and it tends to be found more often when applied to official positions, such as an advisor to a president. When referring to someone who is serving in a military role, especially when using the term as a euphemism (as when claiming that troops are actually military advisers), then adviser is somewhat more common.

Synonyms of adviser

• consultant

Examples of adviser in a Sentence

our financial adviser had some words of caution about buying a second home

Recent Examples on the Web

In his first direct response to a Bloomberg report that Witkoff privately coached senior Kremlin advisers on appealing to Trump, the president said the dealmaker was doing what was required to move both sides toward agreement. —Simon Crerar, MSNBC Newsweek, 26 Nov. 2025

Marco Rubio, who serves as both secretary of state and acting national security adviser, is driving the White House’s Venezuela policy. —Michelle Goldberg, Mercury News, 26 Nov. 2025

Josh Vlasto, the former Chuck Schumer adviser who works as spokesman for both the crypto and AI PACs, told me that Bores was acting as a catspaw of the effective altruism movement, which has nightmares about AI. —David Weigel, semafor.com, 26 Nov. 2025

Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested the leak of his conversation with Witkoff was an attempt to interfere in the peace talks. —Yuliya Talmazan, NBC news, 26 Nov. 2025

Word History

Etymology

advise + -er entry 2, -or entry 1

First Known Use

circa 1536, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for adviser

• advisor
• devisor
• divisor
• franchisor
• incisor
• quantizer
• reviser
• revisor
• advertiser
• analyser
• analyzer
• appetizer