customer

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈkʌs.tə.mə/, US /ˈkʌs.tə.mɚ/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English custumer, costomer,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman custumer, Old French coustumier,^[2][4] from Medieval Latin custumārius (“toll-gatherer, tax collector”),^[2][4] literally “pertaining to custom or customs”, a contraction of Latin consuetudinarius, from consuetudo “habit, usage, practice”,^[2] the source of custom.^[2][3] In some senses it was formed again in English from custom and -er.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A customs official, a toll-gatherer: the late 14th century in Etymonline,^[2] 1448 in the OED.^[5] The OED's first sense, about 1440, is a person who holds land by long custom.^[5]

Semantic evolution

“One who buys goods, especially one who customarily buys from the same tradesman” is from about 1400 in Etymonline^[2] and about 1480 in the OED.^[5] Trench notes that two or three centuries before his time a customer was a collector of customs, as in Coverdale's “Levi the customer” for the tax collector of the Gospels.^[6] The wider “person with whom one has dealings” is from the 1540s,^[2] 1548 in the OED,^[5] and the colloquial “person to deal with”, with an adjective as in an ugly customer, from the 1580s.^[2][5] In Shakespeare it can also mean a prostitute.^[2][5] In Scotland the customer was the lessee of a burgh's customs and dues.^[7]

Timeline

• late 14th century – a customs official.^[2]
• c. 1400 – a regular buyer.^[2]
• c. 1440 – one holding by custom.^[5]
• 1548 – a person one deals with.^[5]
• 1580s – an ugly customer.^[2]
• 1601 – a prostitute.^[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person who buys goods or services, especially regularly from the same seller.
2. (informal) A person one has to deal with: a tough customer.

Word family

• ugly customer

Related words

• consuetude
• costume
• custom
• customary
• customize
• customs
• accustom

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
7. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)