1. An agent or substance that causes mutation or genetic change in an organism.
Usage: technical; biology
2. In programming, a method or function that modifies the state of an object.
Usage: computing

Examples

• Radiation acts as a mutator, increasing the rate of genetic mutations in exposed cells.
• The chemical mutator was used in the laboratory to study how mutations affect fruit fly development.
• In object-oriented programming, a mutator method allows you to change an object's internal state.
• The class includes both accessor and mutator methods for managing data.
• Scientists exposed the bacteria to a known mutator to observe evolutionary changes.