carpenter
noun
a person who builds or repairs wooden structures, as houses, scaffolds, or shelving.
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Chris Carpenter.
carpenter
1 American
[kahr-puhn-ter]
/ ˈkɑr pən tər /
noun
-
carpenters
plural
verb (used without object)
-
carpenters,
present (3rd person singular)
-
carpentered,
past participle, past
-
carpentering
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
carpenters,
present (3rd person singular)
-
carpentered,
past participle, past
-
carpentering
present participle
-
to make by carpentry.
-
to construct (a plot, scene, article, or the like) in a mechanical or unoriginal fashion.
Carpenter
2
American
[kahr-puhn-ter]
/ ˈkɑr pən tər /
noun
-
John Alden, 1876–1951, U.S. composer.
-
(Malcolm) Scott, 1925–2013, U.S. astronaut and oceanographer.
carpenter
1
British
/ ˈkɑːpɪntə /
noun
verb
-
(intr) to do the work of a carpenter
-
(tr) to make or fit together by or as if by carpentry
Carpenter
2
British
/ ˈkɑːpɪntə /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
carpentersimple
-
carpenterssimple
-
have carpenteredperfect
-
has carpenteredperfect
-
am carpenteringprogressive
-
are carpenteringprogressive
-
is carpenteringprogressive
-
have been carpenteringperfect progressive
-
has been carpenteringperfect progressive
Past
-
carpenteredsimple
-
had carpenteredperfect
-
was carpenteringprogressive
-
were carpenteringprogressive
-
had been carpenteringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of carpenter
1275–1325; Middle English < Anglo-French < Late Latin carpentārius wainwright, equivalent to Latin carpent ( um ) two-wheeled carriage (< Celtic; compare Old Irish carpad chariot) + -ārius -ary; see -er 2
Explanation
A carpenter is a person who makes things out of wood. You could hire a carpenter to build you a dining room table and two long benches. Carpenters specialize in woodworking, making furniture and buildings from wood and repairing various wooden things. If you wanted beautiful handmade wooden cabinets in your kitchen, you'd hire a carpenter. The word has been around since the 14th century, but it's been a common last name for even longer. It comes from the Late Latin carpentarius, "wagon maker," with its root word carpentum, "wagon."
Vocabulary lists containing carpenter
Name That Job: Occupational Last Names
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"The Sword in the Stone" and "Was There a Real King Arthur?"
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"Core Curriculum: Introductory Craft Skills," Vocabulary from Module Three
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"We live practically like fireflies here -- in the dark all the time. You never know when you'll have power; it's our sad reality," Julian Gonzalez, a 72-year-old carpenter, told AFP.
From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026
His father, Noel Ernest Hord, was a carpenter as well as a pastor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
The court heard the self-employed carpenter and joiner, who had served in the military before an injury cut his career short, had struggled with his mental health.
From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2026
His father was a carpenter helping build minesweepers at Terminal Island for the Navy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 15, 2026
The hook fastening the bookcase had gotten stuck, which is why no one had been able to warn us about the carpenter.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
Answering a written question from deputy Lee Carpenter, senator Alan McLean said the removal of GST from essential grocery items in shops would mostly benefit the richest islanders because they spent more.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Carpenter & Zuckerman is taking on a growing role in environmental litigation in the region.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
Instead, that honour went to the Sabrina Carpenter duet, Bring Your Love, external.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
From classic dramas like ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and ‘Nashville’ to a John Carpenter sci-fi nightmare, these movies articulate a shifting national mood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
Carpenter bees buzz in and out of a hole in the garden pergola.
From "Red Flags and Butterflies" by Sheryl Azzam
Inside a factory alongside Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley, a forklift delivered a stack of precut lumber to two waiting carpenters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
AI has also made its way into the software used by woodworkers and carpenters.
From BBC ● May 11, 2026
The construction and installation of offshore wind turbines requires the expertise of skilled electrical workers, pipe fitters, welders, pile drivers, iron workers, machinists and carpenters.
From Salon ● May 9, 2026
The result: a 30% drop in employment from a late-2022 peak for actors, carpenters, costumers and the hundreds of other professions that make movies and TV shows, according to Labor Department data.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
Followed by dozens of masons and carpenters, as if she had contracted her husband’s hallucinating fever, Úrsula fixed the position of light and heat and distributed space without the least sense of its limitations.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Mines, of course, are highly constructed, carpentered environments—exactly the kind of environment that should produce a large illusion, according to the theory.
From Slate ● Aug. 24, 2025
Two farmers down the street asked to get married there last fall; guests ate at tables Sarver carpentered and danced late into the night beneath the barn’s vaulted ceiling and wooden beams.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 25, 2016
It’s open at the bottom, and I saw several people direct puzzled glances at its roughly carpentered interior.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 15, 2015
The latter are big quasi-octagonal panels that might have been carpentered for some hieratic medieval interior.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 6, 2011
Rough stairs carpentered out of two by tens leading down into the darkness.
From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
He was a dab hand at carpentering, doctoring, shipbuilding and grape growing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 1, 2022
His upper body is hefty, his hands coarse from years of carpentering.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 19, 2020
Kennedy said he had kept his hand in at carpentering, but feared no one would hire him; he had a brother and a widowed mother to support.
From Time Magazine Archive
For 23 years, English Novelist Phyllis Bentley has been carpentering a literary chronicle of her native Yorkshire.
From Time Magazine Archive
Here, in the evenings, they studied blacksmithing, carpentering, and other necessary arts from books which they had brought out of the farmhouse.
From "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" by George Orwell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
