[f. LINEN sb.] A retail trader who deals in linens, calicos, and the like.
1549. Nottingham Rec., IV. 6. Johannes Cleyter, lynen draper.
1600. Chester Pl., Banes 86. Cappers and lynnen drapers, see that you fourth bringe In well-decked order that worthy storie of Balaam and his Asse.
1607. ? Dekker & Webster, Westward Ho! I. i. Like politic penthouses, which commonly make the shop of a mercer or linen-draper as dark as a room in Bedlam.
1782. Cowper, Gilpin, 21. I am a linnen-draper bold, As all the world doth know.
1858. Lytton, What will He do? II. v. Mrs. Haughton was the daughter of a linen draper.
Hence Linendraperess, the wife of a linen-draper, a female linen-draper. Linendrapery, the occupation of a linen-draper; goods in which a linen-draper deals.
1868. Miss Braddon, Dead-sea Fruit, I. vi. 104. The linendraperess seated herself in one of the holland-covered arm-chairs.
1849. F. J. Foxton, Pop. Chr., 16. A glorious testimony against the heterodox linen-drapery of the Tractarians.
1895. P. White, A King’s Diary, 4. Colossal linendrapery ending in such a daughter is a glorified trade.
