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tailor

noun · verb

Simple meaning

Someone who makes, repairs, or alters clothes professionally.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

tayler

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈteɪlɚ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A person who makes, repairs, or alters clothes professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.

  2. Australia

    Bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix).

verb

  1. ambitransitive

    To make, repair, or alter clothes.

  2. Adjust to a specific need or market

  3. figurativetransitive

    To make or adapt (something) for a specific need.

  4. figurativetransitive

    To restrict (something) in order to meet a particular need.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A person who makes, repairs, or alters clothes professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.

Used this way, tailor is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

merchant tailortailor shopmaster tailorgood tailorpoor tailorjourneyman tailor

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • tailoringnounInflected form

    The occupation of a tailor.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • tailor's chalknounRelated term

    Chalk used by tailors to make temporary marks on cloth.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: to make or repair or or alter clothes

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.