Peyntour

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for a person who makes paintings or decorates surfaces with colour, used in Middle English texts
2. A medieval word for an artist who applies pigment to panels, walls or canvas to create images
3. An obsolete name for someone whose trade or craft is painting pictures or decorating objects with colour

Etymology: In Middle English, "peyntour" was a spelling of the agent noun meaning one who paints, the ancestor of modern "painter." It came into English from Anglo-Norman "peintour," which in turn descends from Latin "pictor," a painter, from "pingere," to paint. The Latin root also gave English "picture" by a different route, through the past participle "pictura," so the two words are cousins that reached English along separate paths. The ending shows the word's French ancestry. Old French agent nouns often ended in "-eor" or "-our," and English kept that pattern in spellings like "peyntour" before the modern "-er" form settled in. The name "painter" for a rope tied to a boat's bow is a separate word, likely from Old French "pentoir," a rope for hanging something, from "pendre," to hang, so the two words only look alike by accident.