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cordwainer

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: cordwainers

A cordwainer is a shoemaker who works in fine leather. The cordwainers' guild.

The distinction from a cobbler is real, since a cobbler mends and a cordwainer makes. The name comes from Cordoba in Spain, whose leather was the best in Europe.

Jorge Royan · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of cordwainer

  1. 1nouncordwainerA shoemaker who works in fine leather.C2

    “The cordwainer made four pairs a week and mended nothing.”

cordwainer is a craftsman.

Where it comes from

From Old French cordoan, leather of Cordova, the Spanish city famous for it.

  1. Old French

    cordoan — (leather) of Cordova

  2. Anglo-Norman

    cordewaner

  3. Middle English

    cordewainer

  4. English, today

    cordwainer

From Middle English cordewainer, cordewaner, from Anglo-Norman cordewaner, from Old French cordoan (“(leather) of Cordova”). See also cordovan, itself borrowed from Spanish Córdoba.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

cordwainer in the wild

  • A cordwainer () is a shoemaker who makes new shoes from new leather.

    Cordwainer

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.