▪ I. tailoring, vbl. n.
(ˈteɪlərɪŋ)
[f. tailor v. + -ing1.]
a. The action or business of a tailor; the making of garments.
| 1662 Petty Taxes xv. Tracts (1769) 83 The value of wool, clothing, and tayloring, even to the thread and needles might be comprehended. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. i. v, Neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man proceed by mere Accident. 1888 Queen 7 Apr. 425 Tailoring for Ladies (and not Tailoressing) is carried on at Ulster House. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VI. 704 Unable to follow her occupation of tailoring. |
b. The production of the tailor; tailor's work.
| 18.. Whittier Pr. Wks. (1889) II. 239 Priests, stripped of their sacerdotal tailoring, were in his view but men, after all. 1899 Whiteing 5 John St. xxiv. 246 In all the glory of the best tailoring in town. |
c. fig. The act of adjusting or producing to suit specific needs. orig. U.S.
| 1943 Sun (Baltimore) 5 Feb. 4/5 Thirty-seven ration boards in the State now are completing the tailoring of ration books. 1951 Times 21 Sept. 1/5 (Advt.), Highpolymer chemist for applied research on the ‘tailoring’ of linear macromolecules required by an important, very modern works in S.W. England. 1979 United States 1980/81 (Penguin Travel Guides) p. xii, Very precise editing and tailoring keeps our text fiercely subjective. |
d. attrib.
| 1850 Kingsley Cheap Clothes in Alt. Locke (1881) II. 101 The means of reducing prices in the tailoring trade. 1886 C. E. Pascoe Lond. of To-day xli. (ed. 3) 352 The most finished examples of the tailoring art. |
▪ II. tailoring, ppl. a.
(ˈteɪlərɪŋ)
[-ing2.]
That does tailor's work. In quot. fig.
| 1737 M. Green Spleen 520 These Tayl'ring artists for our lays Invent cramp'd rules, and with strait stays..Emaciate sense, before they fit. |