carpenter

From Middle English carpenter, from Anglo-Norman carpenter (compare Old French charpentier), from Late Latin carpentārius (“a carpenter”), from Latin carpentārius (“a wagon-maker, carriage-maker”), from Latin carpentum (“a two-wheeled carriage, coach, or chariot, a cart”), from Gaulish carbantos, from Proto-Celtic *karbantos (“chariot, war chariot”), probably related to Proto-Celtic *karros (“wagon”). More at car.

Displaced native Old English trēowwyrhta (literally “tree worker”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑː.pən.tə/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑɹpəntɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)pəntə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: car‧pen‧ter

carpenter (plural carpenters)

1. A person skilled at carpentry, the trade of cutting and joining timber in order to construct buildings or other structures.
2. (nautical) A senior rating in ships responsible for all the woodwork onboard; in the days of sail, a warrant officer responsible for the hull, masts, spars and boats of a ship, and whose responsibility was to sound the well to see if the ship was making water.
3. A two-wheeled carriage.
4. (zoology) A carpenter bee.
   • 1968, Elliot C. G. Pinhey, Introduction to insect study in Africa, page 146:

     The large, stout African bees are carpenters (Xylocopa), making small tunnels in timber, housing few individuals.

5. (Canada, British, regional) A woodlouse.
   • 2015, A.D. Barber, “Vernacular names of woodlice with particular reference to Devonshire”, in Bulletin of the British Myriapod & Isopod Group, page 58:

     Eleven names in Laver’s table (just over 6%) are of the “carpenter” type, a name for woodlice also recorded in Shropshire and Warwickshire. […] Apparently a Newfoundland word for woodlouse is “carpenter” or “cafner” (another is also “boat-builder”). These names clearly relate to the animals’ affinity to wood as will “carpenter’s flea”, “wood-pig”, “wood-bug”, “grampus wood-bug” and, of course “woodlouse”.

• (person skilled at carpentry): joiner, chippy, timberwright, treewright, woodworker, woodwright

• carpentry (noun)
• The Carpenter (jocular: Jesus Christ)
• carpent, carpenting (nonstandard)

carpenter (third-person singular simple present carpenters, present participle carpentering, simple past and past participle carpentered)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To work as a carpenter, cutting and joining timber.

   Synonym: (rare) carpent

• “carpenter”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “carpenter”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “carpenter”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• cappenter, carpentar, carpenteer, carpentour, carpintier, carpunter

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman carpenter (compare Old French charpentier), from Late Latin carpentārius.

• IPA^(key): /karpɛnˈteːr/, /ˈkarpɛntər/

carpenter (plural carpenteres)

1. carpenter

• carpentrie

• English: carpenter
• Scots: carpenter

• “carpentē̆r, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

carpenter oblique singular, m (oblique plural carpenters, nominative singular carpenters, nominative plural carpenter)

1. Alternative form of charpantier
   • c. 1155, Wace, Le Roman de Brut:

     Maçons fist querre et carpenters
     Si fist refaire les mousters

     He searched for masons and carpenters
     in order to rebuild the minsters.