Fripper

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A historical trader who buys and sells used garments, especially old clothing sold in markets or from a stall
2. Someone in earlier times who made a living dealing in cast-off or second-hand apparel for resale
3. An old-fashioned term for a person who trades in used clothes and other discarded wearing apparel

Etymology: The trade of buying and reselling used clothing has an old name in English, borrowed from French, and its roots are less about clothes than about wear and waste. The French "fripier" was formed from "friper," a verb meaning to rumple, crumple or fumble, and by extension to waste or squander. The idea seems to be of clothes so worn and handled that they have been crushed out of shape, the sort of goods that changed hands after their first owners had finished with them. The word came into English from French and so carries the sense of a dealer rather than of the garments themselves. A "fripper" was the person who traded in old finery, a figure found in the markets and street trade of cities where secondhand dress was the cheapest way to dress well. The verb "friper" also gave French a word for the rough handling that wears cloth down, which is why the trade is named after crumpled fabric rather than after the buying and selling.

Synonyms: rag dealer, secondhand dealer