You searched for: “tailor
tailor
1. A person whose occupation is making and altering garments.
2. Someone who makes clothes to meet a particular need or for a particular person>
3. Anyone who adapts something to make it suitable for a particular purpose.
4. To fit or to provide (a person) with clothes made to that person's measurements or specifications.
5. Etymology: Going back to the Latin noun talea, we can trace the development of another common English word, tailor. We know that in Latin the verb taliare, "to cut" was derived from talea, "stick, cutting".

In early French, this verb became taillier, also meaning "to cut", and the person doing the cutting was a tailleur.

The object being cut was usually specified:

  • A stonecutter was tailleur de pierre.
  • A woodcutter was tailleur de bois.
  • A clothes cutter was tailleur d'habits.

By the thirteenth century, when tailleur was used by itself, it was taken to mean "a clothes cutter". Middle English borrowed this French word as taillour and used it in the same sense, "a clothes maker".

—Based on information from
Webster's Word Histories; GMerriam-Webster Inc., Publishers;
Springfield; Massachusetts, U.S.A.; 1989; page 457.
This entry is located in the following unit: talli-, tall- + (page 1)