tradesman
Americannoun
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tradesmen
plural
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a person engaged in trade.
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a worker skilled in a particular craft; artisan; craftsman.
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Chiefly British. a shopkeeper.
noun
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a man engaged in trade, esp a retail dealer
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a skilled worker
Gender
See -man.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of tradesman
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:
“Literature nowadays is a trade,” Milvain insists: Putting aside men of genius, who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skillful tradesman.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
Fifteen years later, the tradesman stood outside Crane’s old spray booth, sanding a $25,000 rosewood bench.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2025
The first—the shark—comes from Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster Jaws, in which a sheriff, a scientist, and a tradesman roll up their sleeves and put themselves in harm’s way to defeat a ferocious great white.
From Slate ● Oct. 29, 2024
A separate tradesman estimated the value of the work completed by Mr McMaster amounted to only £16,000.
From BBC ● Feb. 7, 2024
“Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was very high with him; she called him afterwards a ‘sneaking tradesman.’
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
On a recent evening in a local pub, two builders asked other patrons for recommendations for tradesmen and were told they had to wait several weeks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
“This was an industry of gatekeepers,” he said, adding that master tradesmen ultimately viewed their apprentices — working in the same 10- to 15-mile radius as them — as competition.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2025
Here’s how the day usually goes: At 3 p.m. sharp, about 3,500 members of Zurich’s ancient guilds — associations of artisans or tradesmen that date to the Middle Ages — embark on a parade.
From New York Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
Music blares from a huge speakers cased in a wheelie bin as people huddle round fire pits in a crowd made up of farmers, families, tradesmen and even an off-duty police officer.
From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2024
There were peddlers, who were like the tradesmen but poorer, that carried their goods on their backs.
From "The Inquisitor's Tale" by Adam Gidwitz
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.
