Forms: 4–6 clother, 5 clothyer, 6 -ear, -yar, 6– clothier. [Originally clother; the form in -ier being apparently assimilated to words in which this ending is etymological: see -IER.] One engaged in the cloth trade. a. A maker of woollen cloth; b. esp. One who performs the operations subsequent to the weaving (arch.); c. A fuller and dresser of cloth (U.S.); d. A seller of cloth and men’s clothes.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. XI. 18. But hit beo [cardet] with Couetise as cloþers doþ heor wolle. Ibid. (1377), B. X. 18. As clotheres kemben here wolle.
c. 1470. Pol. Poems (1859), II. 285. Yt ys necessary to every clothyer.
c. 1515. Cocke Lorell’s B. (1843), 9. Waxechaundelers, clothers, and grocers.
1533–4. Act 25 Hen. VIII., c. 18. (title), Clothears, or makers of wollen clothes.
1538. Starkey, England, I. iii. 94. The Clothyarys of Englond.
1572. Gascoigne, Fruits Warre, lxiii. The clothier coyns by carding locks of wooll.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., VI. (1843), 346/1. Leeds, Hallifax, and Bradford, three very populous, and rich Towns … depending wholely upon Clothiers.
1828. Webster, Clothier, in English authors, a man who makes cloths…. In this sense, I believe, it is not used in the United States; certainly not in New England. In America, a man, whose occupation is to full and dress cloth.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXVII. 555/2. The master clothier … employs in all the different processes through which the wool passes in the course of manufacture, distinct classes of persons, who sometimes work at their own houses, and sometimes in the factory of the master-clothier.
1869. Baring-Gould, Orig. Relig. Belief, 50. A tailor and a clothier.
1885. C. Mackeson, British Alm. Comp., 94. In some parts of the country identical titles are very differently applied. Among the double meanings … [are] Clothier for Cloth-maker or Clothes-dealer.
Comb. Clothier-bee = CARDER-BEE.
1864. Intell. Observ., No. 34. 281. The solitary clothier-bee.
