[f. TUNE v. + -ER1.] One who or that which tunes.
1. One who produces or utters musical sounds; a player or singer. arch.
c. 1580. Lodge, Reply Gosson’s Sch. Abuse (Hunter. Cl.), 26. A doleful tuner.
1627. Drayton, Sheph. Sirena, 200. Our mournefull Philomell, that rarest Tuner.
b. One who gives a particular (vocal) tone to something. rare–1.
1592. Shaks., Rom. & Jul., II. iv. 30. The Pox of such antique lisping affecting phantacies, these new tuners of accent.
2. One who tunes a musical instrument; spec. whose occupation is to tune pianos or organs. Also fig.
1801. Busby, Dict. Mus., Tuner, one whose profession it is to rectify the false sounds of musical instruments.
1842. Mrs. Browning, Grk. Chr. Poets, etc., 128. Lord Surrey passes as the tuner of our English.
1872. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. lix. Introd. III. 74. Affliction is the tuner of the harps of sanctified songsters.
1883. Godden, in Knowledge, 25 May, 315/2. This [interval] is so equally dispersed by good tuners as to be almost imperceptible.
b. A workman employed to ‘tune’ a loom: see TUNE v. 1 d.
1885. Scotsman, 26 Aug., 3/6. Tweed Trade—Wanted … An assistant power-loom tuner.
1888. Engineering, 20 Jan., 69. Mules and looms … in the charge of men known as ‘tuners.’
c. An adjustable flap or opening in a flue=pipe of an organ, by means of which it is tuned (cf. tuning-hole s.v. TUNING 4).
1891. in Cent. Dict.
