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

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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

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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

Hermès is looking beyond traditional U.S. luxury capitals like Manhattan and Beverly Hills, using customer data to pinpoint openings in a different kind of “emerging market”: American suburbs and smaller cities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026

“This year was especially difficult,” said Joe Ramallo, chief customer officer at DWP.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026

Every five or 15 minutes, another pager returned to the host stand, blinking and vibrating in the hands of a customer whose table was finally ready.

From Salon ● Oct. 17, 2026

Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria is leaving the company as it contends with slowing growth and falling customer engagement.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

The salesperson helping her was distracted when another customer asked a question.

From "City Spies" by James Ponti

In its IPO filing, Nscale noted that "a substantial portion of our committed revenue is driven by a limited number of customers with large contracts", namely Microsoft and US AI giant Anthropic.

From Barron's ● Oct. 19, 2026

This means Ford is pitching European customers the future while competitors are touting the present.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026

Other Nikola customers include major logistics company J.B.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2026

Ministers said they would tighten up rules, promote competition and give customers clearer compensation routes if things went wrong.

From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026

Paying customers entered, not through the front door, but through a side door that led directly into the bar and post office.

From "Chasing Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Swanson

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Related Words

• client
• consumer
• patron
• purchaser

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