Definition of "milliner"
milliner
noun
plural milliners
(archaic) A person who sells (women's) apparel, accessories, and other decorative goods, especially those originally manufactured in Milan.
Quotations
He hath ſongs for man, or vvoman, of all ſizes: No Milliner can ſo fit his cuſtomers vvith Gloues: […]
c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene iv], page 293, column 1
[H]e vvill not vviſh to get out of that narrovv, that exceeding narrovv Circle; and, in my Opinion, ſhould keep no Company, but that of Tailors, VVigpuffers, and Milaners.
1742, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XLII. From Miss Darnford, in Answer to the Preceding.”, in Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded. […], 3rd edition, volume IV, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; and sold by J. Osborn, […]; and J[ohn] Rivington, […], page 285
(specifically) A person involved in the design, manufacture, or sale of hats for women.
Quotations
They went to a musical comedy and nudged each other at the matrimonial jokes and the prohibition jokes; they paraded the lobby, arm in arm, between acts, and in the glee of his first release from the shame which dissevers fathers and sons Ted chuckled, "Dad, did you ever hear the one about the three milliners and the judge?"
1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XIX, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, section III, page 243
verb
third-person singular simple present milliners, present participle millinering, simple past and past participle millinered
To manufacture (women's apparel, specifically hats); also, to supply (someone) with women's apparel, specifically hats.
Quotations
We pass over his ridiculous observation […] that Sallust has been "man-millinered by Dr. [Henry] Steuart;" for on what we do not understand we can make no remarks.A figurative use.
1806 December, “Steuart’s Sallust, and The Eclectic Review”, in The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, or, Monthly Political and Literary Censor, volume XXV, number CII, London: […] B. M‘Millan, […], page 429
In the east, the only "study of mankind, is man." They have no Miss [Maria] Edgeworth, nor any of those millinering cutters-out of human nature into certain patterns of given rules in education.An adjectival use.
1831, Edward John Trelawny, chapter XLVI, in Adventures of a Younger Son. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], page 321
Oh, if I had but a decent little income, enough to make her tolerably comfortable! For you know she couldn't go on millinering if she was married to me. My mother wouldn't stand that.
1855 May, “Compton Hall; or, The Recollections of Mr. Benjamin Walker. Chapter XI. A Clue and Its Issue.”, in The Rambler. A Catholic Journal and Review, volume III (New Series), part XVII, London: Burns and Lambert, […], pages 353–354
Their eyes were very busy—a millinering I should say. The lady in front of us had her book upside down; the two behind us got into a violent quarrel about somebody's bonnet, which one of the two said was new, while the other pretended it was an old one turned.A figurative use.
1858 January 16, Obadiah [pseudonym], “A Morning at a Fashionable Church”, in Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, volume II, number 55, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, page 33, column 4
You will find that my dressmaker, Madame Smith, is to be depended on for work, though she is expensive and dishonest. When we are tired of Wiltstoken, we will go to Paris, and be millinered there; but in the meantime we can resort to Madame Smith.
1886, George Bernard Shaw, chapter III, in Cashel Byron’s Profession. […], London: The Modern Press, […], page 34
Out on the lake we began to feel more fully the immensity and the desolation of the place. […] Floating all about us were bergs from the size of a water goblet to the size of the Lusitania, […] We traced features of men and shapes of beasts in them. Some wore preposterous hats, millinered by the sun itself.
1921, Rex Beach, “The Chronicle of a Chromatic Bear Hunt”, in Oh, Shoot! Confessions of an Agitated Sportsman, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, page 94
Tom's hat should have bitten the bullet and surrendered then and there. The battering it took in the next half-minute was indescribable. Tom twisted and wrung it between his fingers. It had arrived at the house a brand-new hat. It would leave a cheaply millinered corpse.An adjective use.
2003–2004, Henry Bingham, chapter 105, in The Sons of Adam, Garden City, N.Y.: GuildAmerica Books, page 360
The crowds of besuited men and millinered women going about their affairs ostensibly as in peacetime and watching the scene cannot remain unaffected by the consequences of what they see.An adjective use.
2008, Kevin Brown, “Business Not as Usual”, in Fighting Fit: Health, Medicine and War in the Twentieth Century, Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, page 66
(figurative) To adorn or decorate (something).
Quotations
We would not have Poesy to be greatly millinered, whatever fashions other ladies may adopt; and when we meet her corseted in the iron framework of the sonnet's rhymes, and crinolined about with the unyielding drapery of its fourteen lines, we feel that she is no doubt elegantly dressed, but we long to see her in any other attire she is wont to put on.
1867 April, “Reviews and Literary Notices. The Book of the Sonnet. Edited by Leigh Hunt and S[amuel] Adams Lee. Boston: Roberts Brothers.”, in The Atlantic Monthly. A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics, volume XIX, number CXIV, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, […], page 510, column 2