Daily AncestorClothier
A clothier made or sold cloth or clothing; in early records often someone who made or finished cloth, by the late 1800s usually a dealer in ready-made clothes.
The meaning of clothier shifted over time. Early on, the word could describe a person who made or dressed woolen cloth, sometimes at a fulling mill. By the later 1800s a clothier was a merchant running a store of ready-made men's clothing.
Look at the date and place before deciding which you have. A rural clothier in 1810 and a city clothier in 1890 did very different work.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1880 census
Moses Levy, 46, Clothier, Prussia
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Clothier." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/clothier. Last checked 2026-10-01.