[f. FIT v.1 + -ER1.]
1. One who or that which fits (see the vb.). Also with adverbs, as fitter-out, up.
1660. Hexham, Een geriever, a Fitter, an Applier, or an Accommodatour.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., ix. 147. They make very great Improvement of their sandy, gravelly Land in Devonshire and Cornwal, where Fuel is very scarce, by sowing of them with French Furze Seed, they reckon a great Improver of their Land, and a Fitter of it for Corn.
1859. Sala, Tw. round Clock (1861), 224. Nothing more can be done for a palace than the fitters-up of a modern club have done for it.
2. spec. in various trades (see quot.). Also in Comb., as gas-fitter, hot-water-fitter, etc.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Fitter … a weigher at the mint; a tailor, one who tries on and adjusts articles of dress.
1885. Law Times, LXXX. 8/1. A cutter and fitter of wearing apparel.
1888. Lockwood’s Dict. Terms Mech. Eng., Fitter or Engine Fitter—a working engineer whose duties consist in the fitting together of machine or engine parts.
1892. Labour Commission Gloss., Fitters, term applied to those persons … who paste together the portions cut out to form the boot-upper, to prepare them for sewing.
