Definition

Noun: A person who designs, makes, trims, or sells women's hats.

Examples

• The milliner carefully stitched a silk flower onto the brim of the hat.
• She visited a famous milliner on Fifth Avenue to buy a custom hat for the wedding.
• In the 19th century, a skilled milliner was an important figure in high fashion.

Advanced Usage

• Historically, the term milliner referred specifically to someone who imported and sold fancy goods (like ribbons and gloves) from Milan, Italy, which later evolved to focus on hat-making.
• The profession of a milliner is called .

Variants and Related Words

• Millinery (noun): The craft or business of a milliner; also refers to women's hats collectively.
  • She studied millinery at a fashion school.
• Hatter (noun): A person who makes or sells hats, traditionally men's hats. While related, "hatter" and "milliner" are not perfect synonyms due to historical gender associations of the hats they produced.

Synonyms

• Hatmaker
• Modiste (a maker of fashionable women's clothing and hats)

Idioms and Phrases

• (As) mad as a hatter: This idiom, meaning completely insane, is associated with "hatter," not "milliner." It originates from the historical use of toxic mercury in the felting process for men's hats, which could cause neurological damage.

Noun

1. someone who makes and sells hats