[f. prec. sb.]
1. intr. To do tailor’s work; to make clothes; to follow the calling of a tailor.
1662. [see TAILORING vbl. sb.].
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, I. ix. 158. I set to work a Tayloring, or rather indeed a Botching.
1863. W. B. Jerrold, Signals Distr., 99. Under their superintendence half a dozen boys … are sewing and tailoring.
1882–3. Schaff’s Encycl. Relig. Knowl., 2249. [Stilling] taught school two days a week, and tailored four.
2. trans. To make or fashion (a garment, etc.) by tailor’s work. Hence Tailored ppl. a., tailor-made.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxviii. 366. My buffalo-robes already tailored into kapetahs on their backs.
1862. W. Story, Roba di R. (1863), I. iii. 38. He disdains the tailored skirts of a fashionable coat.
1888. Daily News, 30 April, 2/7. A coat selling at 2l. 2s. was sewn and completely tailored for 4s. 6d.
1908. Newspr. A tailored suit of tabac brown.
3. To fit or furnish (a person) with clothes; to apparel, to dress. Also fig.
18[?]. Bentham, Fragm. Govt. (ed. 2), Pref., Wks. 1843, I. 249/2. If tailoring a man out with God’s attributes … is blasphemy, none was ever so rank as Blackstone’s.
1885. D. C. Murray, Rainbow Gold, II. ii. The country tradesmen who tailored him had sleepless nights.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 24 July, 1/2. He wore a frock coat, and seemed faultlessly tailored.
b. intr. To have dealings with tailors; to run up bills with tailors. colloq.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xxviii. You haven’t hunted or gambled or tailored much.
4. trans. To shoot at (birds) in a bungling manner, so as to miss or merely damage them. slang.
1889. Blackw. Mag., CXLVI. 475. They ought to wait when a bird rises in this manner and tailor him accordingly.
1903. Westm. Gaz., 29 Sept., 4/2. One of them … letting birds past him untouched, knocking out tail feathers, and generally ‘tailoring’ his pheasants.
