means A processor is the component (or person) that performs operations on something — most often the chip at a computer's core that executes instructions, though it can also mean anything or anyone that handles and transforms input into output.

from From the verb 'process,' which came through Old French 'proces' from Latin 'processus,' meaning 'an advance, a going forward' — built from 'pro-' (forward) and 'cedere' (to go), the same 'cedere' lurking in 'proceed,' 'recede,' and 'succeed.' A processor, then, is literally a thing that makes matters go forward. The '-or' suffix is the old Latin agent ending that turns a doer into a noun. The computing sense is a 20th-century application of this much older word for any agent of advancement.