tailor1
- a person whose occupation is the making, mending, or altering of clothes, especially suits, coats, and other outer garments.
- to make by tailor's work.
- to fashion or adapt to a particular taste, purpose, need, etc.: to tailor one's actions to those of another.
- to fit or furnish with clothing.
- Chiefly U.S. Military. to make (a uniform) to order; cut (a ready-made uniform) so as to cause to fit more snugly; taper.
- to do the work of a tailor.
Origin of tailor1
tailor2
- a stroke of a bell indicating someone's death; knell.
Origin of tailor2
Related Words
conformfitmodifyaccommodateadaptalterdressmakeroutfitterclothiercostumiercouturierconvertcutreconciledovetailquadratestyleshapefashionsquareExamples from the Web for tailor
Contemporary Examples
One minute the script, the next a story about Ivor Novello's tailor or the Tahiti steamer schedule in the Thirties.
He had a tailor who ran up dozens of the same suit in different sizes to account for slight variations in his weight.
He looked, that dreadful afternoon, as if he had just come from his barber, tailor and haberdasher.
We should think about mental health more like how we tailor physical training routines.
I also love to go to the market, mostly to buy fabrics which I then take to my tailor.
Historical Examples
Yea, like a woman, who deems a man safest when he is a tailor, or a perfumer.
The Armourer's PrenticesCharlotte M. Yonge
He has the soul of a merchant tailor, actually, but not the tailor's manhood.
The SpendersHarry Leon Wilson
Hart Schaffner and Marx had not yet become rural America's tailor.
DustMr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
A suit of this kind should be as irreproachable in fit and finish as a tailor can make it.
A Woman TenderfootGrace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
He had been a tailor in his time, and had kept a phaeton, he said.
Little DorritCharles Dickens
tailor
- a person who makes, repairs, or alters outer garments, esp menswearRelated adjective: sartorial
- a voracious and active marine food fish, Pomatomus saltator, of Australia with scissor-like teeth
- to cut or style (material, clothes, etc) to satisfy certain requirements
- (tr) to adapt so as to make suitable for something specifiche tailored his speech to suit a younger audience
- (intr) to follow the occupation of a tailor
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for tailor
n.
late 13c., from Anglo-French tailour, Old French tailleor "tailor," literally "a cutter," from tailler "to cut," from Medieval Latin taliator vestium "a cutter of clothes," from Late Latin taliare "to split," from Latin talea "a slender stick, rod, staff, a cutting, twig," on the notion of a piece of a plant cut for grafting.
Possible cognates include Sanskrit talah "wine palm," Old Lithuanian talokas "a young girl," Greek talis "a marriageable girl" (for sense, cf. slip of a girl, twiggy), Etruscan Tholna, name of the goddess of youth.
Although historically the tailor is the cutter, in the trade the 'tailor' is the man who sews or makes up what the 'cutter' has shaped. [OED]
Tailor-made first recorded 1832 (in a figurative sense); originally "heavy and plain," as of women's garments made by a tailor rather than a dress-maker.
v.
1660s, from tailor (n.). Figurative sense of "to design (something) to suit needs" is attested from 1942. Related: Tailored; tailoring.