HABERDASHER  , a name for a tradesman who sells by

retail small articles used in the making or wearing of dress, such as sewing cottons or silks, tapes, buttons, pins and needles and the like . The sale of such articles is not generally carried on alone. and a " haberdashery counter " usually forms a department of drapers' shops . The word, found in Chaucer, and even earlier (1311), is of obscure origin; the suggestion that it is connected with an Icelandic haprtask, " haversack," is, according to the New English Dictionary, impossible . Hapertas occurs in an early Anglo-French customs list, which includes articles such as were sold by haberdashers, but this word may itself have been a misspelling of " haberdash." The obscurity of origin has left room for many conjectures such as that of Minsheu that " haberdasher " was perhaps merely a corruption of the German Habt ihr das ? " Have you that?" or Habe das, Herr, " Have that, sir," used descriptively for a general dealer in miscellaneous wares . The Haberdashers' Company is one of the greater Livery Companies of the City of London . Originally a branch of the mercers, the fraternity took over the selling of " small wares," which included not only articles similar to those sold as " haberdashery " now, but such things as gloves, daggers, glass, pens, lanterns, mousetraps and the like . They were thus on this side connected with the Milliners . On the other hand there was early a fusion with the old gild of the " Hurers," or cap makers, and the hatters, and by the reign of Henry VII. the amalgamation was complete . There were long recognized two branches of the haberdashers, the haberdashers of " small wares," and the haberdashers of hats (see further LIVERY COMPANIES) . The haberdashers are named, side by side with the .capellarii, in the White Book (Liber Albus) of the city of London (see Munimenta Gildhallae Londiniensis, ed . H .

T .

Riley, Rolls Series, 12, 1859-1862), and a haberdasher forms one of the company of pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales (Prologue, 361) .