▪ I. ˈmatch-maker1
[f. match n.1 + maker.]
1. One who brings about or negotiates a match or marriage; usually, one who is addicted to scheming to bring about marriages.
| a 1639 W. Whately Prototypes i. xi. (1640) 102 Pray to God to give a wife or husband to your sonne and daughter, and make piety and vertue the chiefe match-makers. 1678 Butler Hud. iii. i. 420 Who..would have hir'd him and his imps, To be your match-makers and pimps. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. Let. i. 14 June, Perhaps the match-maker is to have a valuable consideration in the way of brokerage. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xvi. III. 724 Clarendon assumed the character of a matchmaker. 1881 E. J. Worboise Sissie xi, Mrs. Williams..was frequently accused of being ‘a match⁓maker’, and bent on marrying her daughters brilliantly. |
2. Sporting. One who enters into a match; one who arranges a match.
| a 1704 T. Brown Table Talk in Collect. Poems 123 Horse-coursers and Matchmakers make no Conscience of Cheating. 1893 Baily's Mag. Oct. 273/2 A match that called forth many encomiums on the match-makers. |
▪ II. ˈmatch-maker2
[f. match n.2 + maker.]
1. One who makes match for guns.
| 1643 [Angier] Lanc. Vall. Achor 9 He that could finde so many Souldiers when there was none, was not to seeke for one Match-maker in time of need. 1644 Prynne & Walker Fiennes's Trial App. 21 They had a Match-maker, a Bullet-maker in the Castle. 1723 Lond. Gaz. No. 6126/4 John Withers, of Black-Heath,..Matchmaker. |
2. One who makes lucifer matches.
| 1851 Knight's Cycl. Industry 1182 These splints are sold by the hogshead to the lucifer match makers. 1893 Dict. Nat. Biog. XXXIV. 200 The match-makers of the East-end of London took fright at a suggestion which might prove fatal to their trade. |