Furriers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person or business that specializes in the design and sale of garments made from animal pelts
2. An artisan who engages in the trade of fur, often crafting coats and accessories from raw pelts
3. An individual involved in the production or retail of fur items, contributing to the fashion industry with their expertise in fur materials

Etymology: The plural "furriers" is simply the form of "furrier," a person who dresses, sells, or makes fur garments. The noun descends from Old French "forrier" and "forrour," and its root is "fourrer," meaning "to line or trim with fur." That verb is the key to the word's surprising past: "furrier" once named a person who lined or trimmed garments with fur, not necessarily one who sold them, and the trade was defined by the act of finishing cloth rather than by the fur itself. The Old French forms reach back to the same family as "foray," which is a surprising connection for a word about coats and collars. Medieval French "fourrer" could mean to stuff or to thrust something into a space, and the sense of a rapid raid is part of that same lineage, so a trade name for trimming garments and a word for a sudden military incursion share an ancestor. The English form "furrier" arrived through Anglo-Norman, which carried the Old French word into Middle English.