Other forms: tanners
A tanner is a worker who turns animal hide into leather. The tanner's yard, a tanner by trade, tanning hides.
Tanning uses tannins from oak or chestnut bark, or chromium salts in the modern industrial process, and it stops the hide rotting. Tanneries smelled appallingly and were placed downwind and downstream of towns, which is why tanning streets are usually on the edge of old cities. Note Tanner as a surname, one of the commonest English trade names; and that tanner was also old British slang for a sixpence.
1nountannerA worker who turns animal hide into leather.
“The tanner's yard was at the far end of the town for good reason.”
tanner is a craftsperson.
The word comes from tan, from a Medieval Latin word for oak bark, which supplied the tannin. Tan the colour is named from the leather rather than the other way round, which is also where suntan comes from.
Old French
tannour
Old English
tannere
Middle English
tannere
English, today
tanner
From Middle English tannere, from Old English tannere; and Old French tannour, equivalent to tan + -er.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Jobs & Professions