Haberdasher

A haberdasher is a person who sells small articles for sewing, such as buttons, ribbons and zippers. In U.S. English, haberdasher is another term for a men's outfitter. A haberdasher's shop or the items sold therein are called haberdashery.

Origin and use

The word appears in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Haberdashers were initially peddlers, sellers of small wares such as needles, buttons, etc. The word could derive from the Icelandic haprtask "peddlers' wares" or the sack in which the peddler carried them. In this sense, a haberdasher (Scandinavian name) would be very close to a mercer (French name). A haberdasher would retail small wares, the goods of the peddler, while a mercer would specialize in "linens, silks, fustian, worsted piece-goods and bedding".

Saint Louis IX, the King of France 1226–70, is the patron saint of haberdashers.

Notable haberdashers

William Adams - a 17th century London Haberdasher born in Newport, Shropshire, who founded Adams' Grammar School in 1656
Robert Aske - a philanthropist
Johnny Carson - of The Tonight Show
Captain James Cook, (R.N., FRS) - 18th century British navigator and explorer, apprenticed to this job in his youth
Daniel Defoe- the famous writer of Robinson Crusoe
John Graunt - one of the first demographers
Christopher Lloyd - actor, e.g. Dr. Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy
Wayne Knight - actor, most famous role: "Newman" from Seinfield
Joseph Merrick, "the Elephant Man", worked as a haberdasher's assistant before being a freak show act
George Newnes - founder of the Tit-Bits newspaper (1881) and the popular The Strand Magazine, of Sherlock Holmes fame
Paavo Nurmi - legendary Finnish distance runner
Charles Taze Russell - the founder of the Bible Student Movement, which he developed and renamed to the Jehovah's Witnesses
Harry S. Truman - President of the United States from 1945-1953

Translation of "Haberdasher"

German: Herrenausstatter, Spanish: Mercería, French: Mercerie#Mercier, Hebrew: סדקית, Norwegian (Bokmål): Kortevarer.