Words of the day: milliner , millinery

Somehow I started thinking about those odd-looking words, milliner , millinery . Were they originally related to textile mills? No.

From the Oxford English Dictionary entry for milliner:

With capital initial. A native or inhabitant of Milan, a city in northern Italy. Obsolete.

The first citation for that meaning is from 1449, in a sentence about every “Venician, Italian, ... and Milener.” And then comes the more familiar meaning:

Originally: a seller of fancy wares, accessories, and articles of (female) apparel, esp. such as were originally made in Milan. Subsequently: spec. a person who designs, makes, or sells women’s hats.

The first citation for that meaning is from 1530, apparently from expense accounts for Henry VIII: “Paied to the Mylloner for certeyne cappes trymmed ... withe botons of golde.”

Millinery came later:

The articles made or sold by milliners. In earlier use frequently attributive .

The first citation is from 1676: “Millinery; disbursements for combs, mittens, gloves, thread, silk.”

And a later meaning:

The trade, business, or craft of a milliner,

with a first citation from Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792): “In the afternoon, the girls should attend a school, where plain-work, mantua-making, millinery, &c., would be their employment.“

The OED entry for the word ends on a hopeful note, with a citation from The Palm Beach Post (January 15, 2000): “Don’t toss millinery onto the scrap heap of dead-end 21st-century careers just yet.”

Hats on!