Chester (placename element)
The English place-name Chester, and the suffixes -chester, -caster and -cester (old -ceaster), are commonly indications that the place is the site of a Roman castrum, meaning a military camp or fort (cf. Welsh caer), but it can also apply to the site of a pre-historic fort.[1] Names ending in -cester are nearly always reduced to -ster when spoken, the exception being "Cirencester", which is pronounced in full.[2] However, names ending in -ster are not necesarily related, as the Irish province of Leinster, which comes from the tribe Laigin + Irish tír or Old Norse staðr, both meaning"land" or "territory". The pronunciation of names ending in -chester or -caster is regular.
Geographic clustering of the suffixes:
-caster 
-cester 
-chester 
-cetter/-xeter
-caster -cester -chester -cetter/-xeterC
- Caister-on-Sea
- Caistor
- Caistor St Edmund
- Casterton, Cumbria
- Casterton, Great, Rutland
- Casterton, Little, Rutland
- Castor, Cambridgeshire
- Chester
- Cheshire, Chester-shire
- Chester, Little, Derby
- Chesterfield
- Chesterford, Great
- Chesterford, Little
- Chester-le-Street
- Chesterton (disambiguation)
- Chesterwood
- Chichester
- Cirencester
- Colchester
D
- Doncaster
- Dorchester
- Dorset, Dor-chester-seat
- Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
L
- Lancaster
- Lancashire, Lune-caster-shire
- Lanchester
- Leicester
Notes
- Ekwall, E. (1960). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (4th ed.). OUP. p. 92. ISBN 0-19-869103-3.
- Wells, John C. (2000). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. 2nd ed. Longman. ISBN 0-582-36468-X.
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