haberdasher

Middle English haberdasshere, of obscure origin

Note: The origin of the word haberdasher has long challenged scholars. Its earliest known occurrence, tracked by the Middle English Dictionary, is as a surname ("Thomas Haperdasser," "Will. Haperdassere") recorded in 1280 in the cartulary of an Oxfordshire abbey. In the fourteenth century evidence for the word and occupation becomes more substantial. The diversity of items carried by a medieval haberdasher—from laces and caps in different colors to gameboards, beads and stationery supplies—are detailed in an inventory made in 1378, included in the letter books of the Guildhall of London (see Henry Thomas Riley, Memorials of London and London Life in the XIIIth, XIVth and XVth Centuries, London, 1868, p. 422). Henry Riley had earlier edited a group of letter books containing records from the Guildhall (London's traditional city hall), and in them he found what he believed to be the key to the etymology of haberdasher. In a list of items on which a duty called scavage was charged (see scavenger) is "la charge de hapertas - xii^d." ("the load of hapertas - 12 pence") (Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis: Liber Albus, Liber Custumarum et Liber Horn, vol. I containing Liber Albus, compiled A.D. 1419 [London, 1859], p. 225). As most other items on the list are fabrics, Riley came to the conclusion that hapertas was a fabric; in the glossary to the Anglo-French words in the Liber Albus (vol. 3, London, 1862, pp. 326-27) he defines it as "a cloth of a peculiar texture, probably coarse and thick" [how Riley arrived at this description is unclear]"…In the word 'hapertas' there can be little doubt that we have the origin of our present word 'haberdasher;' the more especially as the present word is represented by the word 'haberdassherie' in an almost exactly similar passage, of nearly contemporary date, in page 231." Most dictionaries compiled since Riley's work contain some version of this etymology, though it is difficult to sustain given current evidence. The word haberdasshe is attested in 1393, and its sense is likely "the things sold by haberdashers" ("De Henrico Galt pro diversis parvis mercandisiis vocatis haberdasshe." - "From Henry Galt for various small items of merchandise called haberdasshe"; N. S. B. Gras, The Early English Customs System, Cambridge MA, 1918, p. 535). From all appearances this word is a back-formation from haberdassher, which, whatever its origin, is attested much earlier. In this light it is hard to see hapertas as anything more than an exceptionally aberrant variant of haberdasshe. As Riley makes clear, it appears to denote the same thing as haberdassherie, which is a transparent derivative from haberdassher, and means "articles sold by haberdashers." Riley's hypothesis was in any case an instance of obscurum per obscurius, as hapertas is as lacking in etymology as haberdassher (as noted by Anatoly Liberman in "The Haberdasher Displays His Wares and Escapes," OUPBlog, August 6, 2008).