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What do you call somebody who asks a question and somebody who answers a question?
What do I call a person who is participating in a survey?

What's a proper but simple one-word description of a person to whom a question is being asked?

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2 Answers 2

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Addressee is the usual technical term for anyone being talked to, without regard to whether the talking involves a question, a statement, an order, a promise, or whatever. I don't know of any that specifically refer to questions, though.

Questionee and interrogatee are grotesque hapax legomena that call attention to themselves, and to the pomposity of their user. Use the person's name instead, if you know it, or find a more comfortable term to refer to them with.

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    +1 for using the phrase "grotesque hapax legomena," which calls attention to itself... Jul 5, 2012 at 19:05
  • Questionee appears (now at least) to be a grotesque ex-hapax legomena. Mar 27, 2016 at 22:15
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Merriam-Webster has questionee:

one that is questioned

and Dictionary.com and Wiktionary have interrogatee.

Though these are uncommon words, I believe their meanings are clear enough for them to be useful in apt circumstances.

I'd prefer a word like respondent, though, if the questionee actually responds.

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  • Thanks, Daniel. Respondent is useful, but I'm trying to properly identify people in a database I'm developing. I think 'questionee' will work fine for my purposes. I checked Dictionary.com and it wasn't in there, but since one respected source lists it, that's fine with me. I couldn't add it as a tag 'cause I'm a newbie to this site, but feel free to add it if you want - ya never know when someone else might make use of it!
    – monbois
    Jul 5, 2012 at 14:31
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    Please be careful with your sources: Dictionary.com uses Merriam-Webster, and Wiktionary is not a separate dictionary, since its definitions often come from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (verbatim, in this case)! I'm happy you gave links, though, and your answer is good. Jul 5, 2012 at 14:37
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    @Translator1983 Thanks for the remarks - I think that the words stand well on their own merits (being common words with a common ending), so I wasn't super picky about the dictionaries. But you're right about being careful.
    – Daniel
    Jul 5, 2012 at 14:43

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