tailor

pronunciation

How to pronounce tailor in British English: UK [ˈteɪlə(r)] word uk audio image

How to pronounce tailor in American English: US [ˈteɪlər] word us audio image

Noun:

a person whose occupation is making and altering garments
Verb:

make fit for a specific purpose
style and tailor in a certain fashion
create (clothes) with cloth

Word Origin

tailor: tailor: [13] A tailor is etymologically a ‘cutter’. The word was acquired from Anglo-Norman taillour, a variant of Old French tailleur. This went back to Vulgar Latin *tāliātor ‘cutter’, a derivative of *tāliāre ‘cut’, which in turn was formed from Latin tālea ‘cutting’ (in the sense of a ‘piece of a plant removed for grafting or regrowing’).The specific application of the word to a ‘cutter or maker of clothes’ was foreshadowed in medieval Latin tāliātor vestium and Old French tailleur d’habits, and by the time it reached English, the memory of its etymological connection with ‘cutting’ had virtually disappeared; indeed in strict technical usage tailor ‘person who makes up clothes’ contrasts with cutter ‘person who cuts out the cloth’.Other English descendants of tālea include detail, entail, retail, and tally [15] (which depends on another meaning of tālea, ‘twig’, hence ‘notches cut on a stick for counting’).=> detail, entail, retail, tally

tailor (n.): c. 1300, from Anglo-French tailour, Old French tailleor "tailor," also "stone-mason" (13c., Modern French tailleur), literally "a cutter," from tailler "to cut," from Late Latin or old Medieval Latin taliare "to split" (compare Medieval Latin taliator vestium "a cutter of clothes"), from Latin talea "a slender stick, rod, staff; a cutting, twig." Although historically the tailor is the cutter, in the trade the 'tailor' is the man who sews or makes up what the 'cutter' has shaped. [OED] The post-Latin sense development would be "piece of a plant cut for grafting," hence a verb, "cut a shoot," then, generally, "to cut." Possible cognates include Sanskrit talah "wine palm," Old Lithuanian talokas "a young girl," Greek talis "a marriageable girl" (for sense, compare slip of a girl, twiggy), Etruscan Tholna, name of the goddess of youth. Kent. ... You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee. Corn. Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man? Kent. Ay, a tailor, sir: a stone cutter, or a painter, could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two hours at the trade. ["King Lear"] One who makes outer garments to order, as opposed to a clothier, who makes them for sale ready-made. Tailor-made first recorded 1832 (in a figurative sense); literal sense was "heavy and plain, with attention to exact fit and with little ornamentation," as of women's garments made by a tailor rather than a dress-maker.

tailor (v.): 1660s, from tailor (n.). Figurative sense of "to design (something) to suit needs" is attested from 1942. Related: Tailored; tailoring.