carpenter

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to work as a woodworker

   Although it's not my day job, I carpenter at the weekends.

2. 2
   noun

   A carpenter bee.

   The large, stout African bees are carpenters (Xylocopa), making small tunnels in timber, housing few individuals.

3. 3
   noun

   A woodlouse.

   Eleven names in Laver’s table (just over 6%) are of the “carpenter” type, a name for woodlice also recorded in Shropshire and Warwickshire.[…] Apparently a Newfoundland word for woodlouse is “carpenter” or “cafner” (another is also “boat-builder”). These names clearly relate to the animals’ affinity to wood as will “carpenter’s flea”, “wood-pig”, “wood-bug”, “grampus wood-bug” and, of course “woodlouse”.

4. 4
   name

   A surname originating as an occupation derived from the trade name carpenter.

   Among the celebrities she considers part of her zillennial cohort are Zendaya and American singer-songwriter Sabrina Carpenter.

5. 5
   noun

   a woodworker who makes or repairs wooden objects

6. 6
   noun

   A person skilled at carpentry, the trade of cutting and joining timber in order to construct buildings or other structures.

7. 7
   noun

   A senior rating in ships responsible for all the woodwork onboard; in the days of sail, a warrant officer responsible for the hull, masts, spars and boats of a ship, and whose responsibility was to sound the well to see if the ship was making water.

8. 8
   noun

   A two-wheeled carriage.

Etymology

From Middle English carpenter, from Anglo-Norman carpenter (compare Old French charpentier), from Late Latin carpentārius (“a carpenter”), from Latin carpentārius (“a wagon-maker, carriage-maker”), from Latin carpentum (“a two-wheeled carriage, coach, or chariot, a cart”), from Gaulish carbantos, from Proto-Celtic *karbantos (“chariot, war chariot”), probably related to Proto-Celtic *karros (“wagon”). Doublet of carpintero. More at car. Displaced native Old English trēowwyrhta (literally “tree worker”).