Other forms: trimmers
A trimmer is a small electric tool for shortening hair neatly. A beard trimmer, use the trimmer, a nose trimmer.
It cuts to a set length rather than to the skin, which is what separates it from a shaver, and the guard decides the length. A hedge trimmer is the garden version. In old political slang a trimmer was somebody who shifted position to suit the wind.
1nountrimmerA small electric tool for shortening hair neatly.
“He used an electric trimmer to tidy up his beard.”
trimmer is a tool.
Trim plus -er. The political sense came from trimming a sail to whatever wind was blowing.
Proto-Germanic
*trumjaną — to make fast; strengthen
Proto-West Germanic
*trummjan
Old English
trymman — to make firm; strengthen
Middle English
trimen
English
trim
English, today
trimmer
From trim + er. Figurative sense of “person who changes views with prevailing opinions” from 1680s, from nautical sense of “adjust sails with the wind”. trim comes from Middle English trimen, trymen, trumen, from Old English trymman (“to make firm; strengthen”), from Proto-West Germanic trummjan, from Proto-Germanic trumjaną (“to make fast; strengthen”), from Proto-Germanic trumaz (“firm; strong; sound”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA