to make by carpentry.
to construct (a plot, scene, article, or the like) in a mechanical or unoriginal fashion.
John Alden, 1876–1951, U.S. composer.
(Malcolm) Scott, 1925–2013, U.S. astronaut and oceanographer.
(intr) to do the work of a carpenter
(tr) to make or fit together by or as if by carpentry
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
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."
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Family members have said Craig, a carpenter, has been refusing food for 25 days.
From BBC ● Jun. 2, 2026
“We don’t have a lot of savings, all our money is in our home,” said Gabe Cotton, a union carpenter in the Festus area.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026
His father was a carpenter helping build minesweepers at Terminal Island for the Navy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 15, 2026
A friend recommended a carpenter, who helped with the termites and trickier renovations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 29, 2026
He was a carpenter, and it turned out he needed help with a new house he was building.
From "I Survived the Great Alaska Earthquake, 1964" by Lauren Tarshis
Swift's celebrity friend group – Selena Gomez, Suki Waterhouse, the Haim sisters, Cara Delevingne, Jack Antonoff, Sabrina Carpenter among them - reflects diverse tastes.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Third, arguments that Chatrie and Carpenter lacked “support in 19th- or 20th-century understandings of the Fourth Amendment” only garnered a minority of justices’ votes.
From Slate ● Jul. 1, 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 meant us to to see his bug-eyed space invaders as yuppies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
In his glory days, Carpenter elevated the ploys and chicanery of his trade to a devilish art.
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
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
Unions representing California school teachers, carpenters, state workers and nurses have plowed more than $23 million into efforts to pass Proposition 50, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosure reports about donations exceeding $100,000.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2025
The demand for carpenters and bricklayers soared, and farmers from as far away as 150 miles came to get jobs.
From "The Great Fire" by Jim Murphy
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
Suddenly the Fair Folk halted at one of the cottages, and from a neatly carpentered pen Taran heard a loud “Hwoinch!”
From "The Book of Three" by Lloyd Alexander
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
As the pictures show, hunting, fishing, farming, brickmaking, butchering, carpentering, dancing, drinking, feasting and mourning were essentially the same then as now.
From Time Magazine Archive
His carpentering and plastering employes mostly came to work in their automobiles.
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.
