Tailor

NINE (TEN, or THREE) TAILORS MAKE A MAN, subs. phr. (old).—See quots.

  1605.  SHAKESPEARE, King Lear, ii. 2. 60. Kent. A tailor made thee. Corn. Thou art a strange fellow: A TAILOR MAKE A MAN?

  1607.  DEKKER, Northward Hoe, ii. 1. They say THREE TAILORS GO TO the making up of A MAN, but I am sure I had FOUR TAILORS AND A HALF WENT TO THE MAKING OF ME thus.

  1630.  TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Workes, iii. 73, ‘The Praise of Hemp-seed.’

  1635.  GLAPTHORNE, The Lady Mother, i. 1. He was by trade a taylor, sir, and is the TENTH PART of the bumbast that goes to the setting forth OF A MAN.

  1635.  QUARLES, Emblems, iv. 15. The nine sad knells of a passing bell.

  1638.  NABBES, Covent Garden, iii. 3. Ralph. I could take the wall of THREE TIMES THREE TAYLORS, though in the morning, and at a Bakers stall.

  1663.  BUTLER, Hudibras, I. ii.

  d. 1655.  T. ADAMS, Soul’s Sickness [Works, i. 487]. God made him a man, he hath made himself a beast; and now THE TAILOR (scarce a man himself) MUST MAKE HIM A MAN again.

  1671.  BUCKINGHAM, The Rehearsal, iii. 1. Why … marry? If NINE TAYLORS MAKE but ONE MAN; and one woman cannot be satisfi’d with nine men: what work art thou cutting out here for thy self, trow?

  c. 1709.  WARD, Terræ Filius, v. 31–33. An old Wealthy Limb-trimmer … the very NINTH PART OF A MAN that put the jest upon a Shoe-maker.

  1763.  FOOTE, The Mayor of Garratt, ii., 30. A journeyman tailor!… This cross-legged cabbage-eating son of a cucumber, this whey-faced ninny, who is but THE NINTH PART OF A MAN.

  1767.  RAY, Proverbs [BOHN], 135. NINE TAILORS MAKE but ONE MAN.

  1785.  GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Tailor…. A London tailor rated to furnish HALF A MAN to the trained bands, asking how that could possibly be done, was answered, by sending FOUR JOURNEYMEN AND AN APPRENTICE.

  1822.  NARES, Glossary, s.v. Tailor, How old the sarcasm of NINE TAILORS MAKING A MAN may be, does not appear; but it is very old.

  1833–4.  CARLYLE, Sartor Resartus, III. xi. An idea has gone abroad … that Tailors are … not Men, but fractional Parts of a Man…. [Did not] Queen Elizabeth, receiving a deputation of Eighteen Tailors, address them with a ‘Good morning, gentlemen both’? Did not the same virago boast … a Cavalry Regiment, whereof neither horse nor man could be injured; her Regiment,… of Tailors on Mares?

  1838.  W. DIMOND, Stage Struck, sc. 1. Instead of gallanting a goddess to our shores I had the felicity to usher from the boat THE NINTH PART OF A MAN.

  1868.  W. L. BLACKLEY, Word Gossip, vi. NINE TAILORS [itself corrupted from tellers] MAKE A MAN [i.e., nine counting strokes at the end of a knell proclaim the death of a male adult].

  1877.  L. JEWITT, Half-Hours among Some English Antiquities, 176. At Woodborough, [the Passing bell consists of] THREE TOLLS THRICE repeated FOR A MAN, and two tolls thrice repeated for a woman.

  1882.  The Spectator, 26 Aug., 1111. ‘How many TELLERS MAKE A MAN?’ asked a clergyman of a working-man, as they listened to the tolling of a death-bell. ‘NINE,’ replied he promptly.

  1899.  R. WHITEING, No. 5 John Street, vii. A wrangling discussion … between ’48 and a tailor … who … it appears is the NINTH OF A Conservative working MAN.

  THE FAG-END OF A TAILOR, subs. phr. (old).—See quot.

  1600.  The Weakest goeth to the Wall, i. 3. Zounds! twit me with my trade? I am THE FAG END OF A TAILOR; in plain English, a botcher.

  PHRASES.  ‘A TAILOR’S shreds are worth the cutting’; ‘Like the TAILOR who sewed for nothing, and found the thread himself’; ‘Thieving and TAILOR go together’; ‘Put a TAILOR, a miller, and a weaver into a sack, shake them well, and the first that puts out his head is certainly a thief’ (GROSE).

  16[?].  Pasquil’s Nightcap [Rept.], 1.