customer

American  

[kuhs-tuh-mer] / ˈkʌs tə mər /

noun

• customers
  plural

1. a person who purchases goods or services from another; buyer; patron.

2. Informal. a person one has to deal with.

   a tough customer; a cool customer.

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customer British  

/ ˈkʌstəmə /

noun

1. a person who buys

2. informal a person with whom one has dealings

   a cool customer

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customer Idioms  

1. see ugly customer.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• customers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of customer

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English; custom + -er ¹; compare Middle English customer “collector of customs,” from Anglo-French; Old French costumier, cognate with Medieval Latin custumārius; see customary

Explanation

A customer is anyone paying for a good or service. Without customers, businesses would go out of business. When you're paying for just about anything, you're a customer. People shopping at the grocery store, sitting in coffee shops, going to movies, and buying DVDs online are all customers. The point of advertising is to drum up new customers for a business. There's a cliché that "The customer is always right," which is obviously not true, but shows how businesses try to make customers happy. They'd better. Without customers, any business is in deep trouble.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

customer customers

Nvidia is also expanding its customer base to include more enterprises and sovereign programs, he said.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 24, 2026

The turbo in-line six-cylinder engine was fine and all but, one customer complained, “it sounded like you were driving a Honda.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

"You can see it across all areas -- customer inquiries keep rising and rising," she said.

From Barron's ● Aug. 23, 2026

Jinell Singletary, owner of Urban Comfort Foods in Carson, has also seen a change in how her older, majority Black customer base orders.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026

When I arrive, Mr. Malloy is just finishing up with a customer.

From "Betty Before X" by Ilyasah Shabazz and Renée Watson

Some of the chip maker’s major customers could face a hike of more than 15% depending on the system’s chip-generation and memory needs, Bloomberg reported on Saturday.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 24, 2026

Hirst said the charity had provided uniforms to between 100 and 200 customers in the past week.

From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026

“Today’s settlement unwinds an agreement under which Zillow paid Redfin $100 million to stop competing and hand off all its customers to Zillow,” said Daniel Guarnera, who helms the FTC’s Bureau of Competition.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026

It’s rare to see a fast-food CEO as public as Graves is—that can be risky, as the McDonald’s CEO can attest—but it’s another way the company is meeting its customers where they are.

From Slate ● Aug. 24, 2026

As Madame Ionesco herself could tell you, a baker must work in the dead of night in order to have plenty of fresh-baked treats ready for the morning’s customers.

From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood

Related Words

• client
• consumer
• patron
• purchaser