milliner

plural milliners

1. archaicA person who sells (women's) apparel, accessories, and other decorative goods, especially those originally manufactured in Milan.

   He hath ſongs for man, or vvoman, of all ſizes: No Milliner can ſo fit his cuſtomers vvith Gloues: […]

   c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], page 293, column 1

   2 more examples

   Hoſt. Here comes my vvife and daughter. / […] / Clovv[n]. She is a pretty lure to dravv cuſtome to your ordinary. / Hoſt. Doſt think I keep her to that purpoſe? / Clovv. VVhen a Dove-houſe is empty, there is cumin-ſeed uſed to purloine from the reſt of the neighbours; […] A Milliner has choice of Monkies, and Paraketoes; […]

   1626 February 1 (licensing date; Gregorian calendar), John Fletcher [et al.], “The Faire Maide of the Inne”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 35, column 1

   [H]e vvill not vviſh to get out of that narrovv, that exceeding narrovv Circle; and, in my Opinion, ſhould keep no Company, but that of Tailors, VVigpuffers, and Milaners.

   1742, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XLII. From Miss Darnford, in Answer to the Preceding.”, in Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded. […], 3rd edition, volume IV, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; and sold by J. Osborn, […]; and J[ohn] Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 285

2. specificallyA person involved in the design, manufacture, or sale of hats for women.

   Milliners, toymen, and jewellers came down from London [to Tunbridge Wells], and opened a bazaar under the trees.

   1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 346

   5 more examples

   The Milliner muſt be thoroughly verſed in Phyſiognomy; in the Choice of Ribbons ſhe muſt have a particular regard to the Complexion, and muſt ever be mindful to cut the Head-dreſs to the Dimentions of the Face.

   1713 September 12 (Gregorian calendar), [John Gay], “Tuesday, September 1. 1713.”, in The Guardian, number 149, London: […] J[acob] Tonson […]; and sold by A. Baldwin […], →OCLC, page [2], column 1

   The great difficulty generally experienced by amateur milliners in lining bonnets, is mainly attributable to the error of fixing the lining in the first instance to the edge of the bonnet, instead of arranging it previously at the head part.

   1847, M[ary] J. Howell, “Lesson II. On Lining Straw and Other Bonnets.”, in The Hand-book of Millinery; […], London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 24

   She is at present apprenticed, Miss Mowcher, or articled, or whatever it may be, to Omer and Joram, Haberdashers, Milliners, and so forth, in this town.

   1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, “Some Old Scenes, and Some New People”, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 235

   We may, therefore, fairly suppose that the first milliner was probably contemporaneous with the first woman, and that the carpenters who made the ark were not ignorant of the construction of a bandbox.

   1859 September 10, “Perkins’s Purple”, in Charles Dickens, editor, All the Year Round. A Weekly Journal. [...] With which is Incorporated Household Words, volume I, number 20, London: […] C. Whiting, […], →OCLC, page 470, column 1

   They went to a musical comedy and nudged each other at the matrimonial jokes and the prohibition jokes; they paraded the lobby, arm in arm, between acts, and in the glee of his first release from the shame which dissevers fathers and sons Ted chuckled, "Dad, did you ever hear the one about the three milliners and the judge?"

   1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XIX, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, section III, page 243

present singular third person milliners · participle present millinering · participle past millinered · past millinered

1. archaictransitiveTo manufacture (women's apparel, specifically hats); also, to supply (someone) with women's apparel, specifically hats.

   We pass over his ridiculous observation […] that Sallust has been "man-millinered by Dr. [Henry] Steuart;" for on what we do not understand we can make no remarks.

   1806 December, “Steuart’s Sallust, and The Eclectic Review”, in The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, or, Monthly Political and Literary Censor, volume XXV, number CII, London: […] B. M‘Millan, […], →OCLC, page 429

   5 more examples

   In the east, the only "study of mankind, is man." They have no Miss [Maria] Edgeworth, nor any of those millinering cutters-out of human nature into certain patterns of given rules in education.

   1831, Edward John Trelawny, chapter XLVI, in Adventures of a Younger Son. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 321

   Oh, if I had but a decent little income, enough to make her tolerably comfortable! For you know she couldn't go on millinering if she was married to me. My mother wouldn't stand that.

   1855 May, “Compton Hall; or, The Recollections of Mr. Benjamin Walker. Chapter XI. A Clue and Its Issue.”, in The Rambler. A Catholic Journal and Review, volume III (New Series), part XVII, London: Burns and Lambert, […], →OCLC, pages 353–354

   Their eyes were very busy—a millinering I should say. The lady in front of us had her book upside down; the two behind us got into a violent quarrel about somebody's bonnet, which one of the two said was new, while the other pretended it was an old one turned.

   1858 January 16, Obadiah [pseudonym], “A Morning at a Fashionable Church”, in Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, volume II, number 55, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 33, column 4

   You will find that my dressmaker, Madame Smith, is to be depended on for work, though she is expensive and dishonest. When we are tired of Wiltstoken, we will go to Paris, and be millinered there; but in the meantime we can resort to Madame Smith.

   1886, George Bernard Shaw, chapter III, in Cashel Byron’s Profession. […], London: The Modern Press, […], →OCLC, page 34

   Out on the lake we began to feel more fully the immensity and the desolation of the place. […] Floating all about us were bergs from the size of a water goblet to the size of the Lusitania, […] We traced features of men and shapes of beasts in them. Some wore preposterous hats, millinered by the sun itself.

   1921, Rex Beach, “The Chronicle of a Chromatic Bear Hunt”, in Oh, Shoot! Confessions of an Agitated Sportsman, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 94

2. archaicfigurativelytransitiveTo adorn or decorate (something).

   1 more example

   We would not have Poesy to be greatly millinered, whatever fashions other ladies may adopt; and when we meet her corseted in the iron framework of the sonnet's rhymes, and crinolined about with the unyielding drapery of its fourteen lines, we feel that she is no doubt elegantly dressed, but we long to see her in any other attire she is wont to put on.

   1867 April, “Reviews and Literary Notices. The Book of the Sonnet. Edited by Leigh Hunt and S[amuel] Adams Lee. Boston: Roberts Brothers.”, in The Atlantic Monthly. A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics, volume XIX, number CXIV, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, […], →OCLC, page 510, column 2

plural Milliners

1. A surname.