sewster

English

Alternative forms

• shooster (Scotland)

Etymology

From Middle English sewstare, sowstare, sewestre, sowestre, equivalent to sew +‎ -ster. Compare seamster, spinster.

Noun

sewster (plural sewsters)

1. (archaic or dialectal) A seamstress.
   • 1641, Ben Jonson, The Sad Shepherd:

     At every twisted thrid my rock let fly Unto the sewster

   • 1816, The Gentleman's magazine, volume 120, London, England, page 231:

     This Letter mentions that portraits of Cromwell, Lockhart, and Mr. Sewster, were then in the possession of Mr. Gosling, of Wistow, near Ramsey, in Huntingdonshire, whose Grandfather married a Sewster.

   • 2004, Peter Lake, Moderate Puritans And The Elizabethan Church:

     […] and not of men only but of women and the same not only learned but labouring men, sewsters, servants, and handmaids.

   • 2010, Gary Taylor, John Lavagnino, MacDonald P. Jackson, Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works - Page 316:

     Bound with strong cord! A sewster's thread, i'faith, had been enough [...]

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “sewster”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Westers, stewers, westers