custom

Less common meanings

6. 6
   regular buyersnounUKcollectivecountable or uncountable

   Regular buying from a particular shop or business, or the customers who give it this support.

   The market's custom dwindled as the neighborhood changed.

   Word of mouth built the cafe's loyal custom over a decade.

   UsageMostly British: bring in custom, lose custom. Elsewhere people say business or customers.

   Similarbusiness, patronage, trade, clientele

   Note

   The word can name the buying or the people who do it. In the second use it means the buyers themselves, gathered into one collective body, so a shop's custom can grow or dwindle like a crowd. The buyers took their name from their regular buying.

7. 7
   for hireadjective

   Performed for hire on others' behalf, rather than only for oneself.

   He runs a custom baling operation across three counties.

   Custom slaughtering lets ranchers process meat without their own facility.

   Note

   Farm work has its own use of the word. Custom threshing, custom baling or custom tillage is work an operator does for others, for pay, usually with machinery that the hired work helps justify. A farmer who threshes his own wheat and also threshes for neighbors at a fee shows the contrast the word draws. Nothing about the result is tailored; what matters is who the work is for. Source

   Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

   • Custom farm operations are performed for another landowner in exchange for payment. extension.iastate.edu
   • Paid custom work helps farmers spread the cost of owning machinery. uaex.uada.edu
8. 8
   usualadjectivearchaic

   Accustomed or habitual; in keeping with what is usual for someone.

   Note

   A modern reader can easily mistake this archaic adjective for the made-to-order adjective. In this older use the word means usual, not tailored. Outside deliberate period writing, accustomed or usual says the same thing without that ambiguity. Source

   Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • Custom has an archaic adjectival sense meaning accustomed or usual. en.wiktionary.org
9. 9
   nounobsoletecountable or uncountable

   Familiar acquaintance with a person; the familiarity that grows from frequent contact.

   Age can not wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.

   c. 1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”

   Note

   Shakespeare uses it of Cleopatra, whom 'age can not wither … nor custom stale'. There custom is the familiarity that wears novelty thin, not a habit or a tradition. A reader meeting the word in older verse should keep that reading in mind. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Shakespeare uses the quoted words about Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra; the character speaking is Enobarbus. folger.edu
   • Custom in this quotation means familiar acquaintance or familiarity. en.wiktionary.org
10. 10
    verbobsoleteintransitive

    To have a custom, especially a habit of doing a particular thing regularly.

    For on a Bridge he cuſtometh to fight, / Which is but narrow, but exceeding long; / And in the ſame are many trap fals pight, / Through which the rider downe doth fall through ouerſight.

    1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

    Note

    An intransitive verb that took to and an infinitive, much as be in the habit of does now. Book V of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (1596) has a fighter who 'custometh to fight' on a long, narrow bridge riddled with trapdoors. Present-day English expresses the same idea with used to, or with accustomed to and a gerund. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • Custom was an intransitive verb meaning to have a custom. en.wiktionary.org
    • The verb could take to followed by an infinitive. pages.uoregon.edu
    • Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene. en.wikipedia.org
    • The poem first appeared in 1590. Book V, containing this passage, first appeared in 1596. en.wikisource.org
    • The poem describes a fighter who 'custometh to fight' on a long, narrow bridge containing numerous trapdoors. pages.uoregon.edu
11. 11
    verbobsoletetransitive

    To make someone familiar with something; to accustom a person to it.

    Note

    An obsolete verb that did the work accustom does now: to custom someone was to make them used to something. Its past forms were customed, without the ac- of accustomed. Modern English uses accustom for every part of this verb, so custom in this sense would read as a mistake. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

    • Custom was an obsolete transitive verb meaning to make someone familiar with something or accustom them to it. en.wiktionary.org
    • The simple past and past participle were customed. en.wiktionary.org
12. 12
    verbobsoletetransitive

    To supply a shop or tradesperson with customers.

    But yet a man might reply, that if a Shooemaker ſhould haue no Shooes in his Shoppe, but onely worke, as hee is beſpoken, hee ſhould bee weakley cuſtomed.

    1605, Francis Bacon, “The Second Booke”

    Note

    Francis Bacon's shoemaker of 1605 keeps no ready shoes and only works to order, so he 'should be weakly customed', meaning poorly supplied with buyers. The verb appears there in the passive, and it is the causative partner of the customers-as-a-body noun: to custom a shop is to give it a custom. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • Francis Bacon's example occurs in The Advancement of Learning, first published in 1605. pages.uoregon.edu
    • Bacon imagines a shoemaker who stocks no shoes and works only when commissioned. gutenberg.org
    • The quoted wording is accurate in modernized spelling, and the construction is passive. gutenberg.org
    • The verb means supplying customers, so Bacon's phrase means being poorly supplied with buyers. en.wiktionary.org
    • The verb has the stated causative relationship to the collective noun meaning a business's customers or support. en.wiktionary.org
13. 13
    verbobsoletetransitive

    To pay the duties or customs owed on goods.

    Barabas, thy ships are safe, Riding in Malta Rhode; and all the merchants With other merchandize are safe arriv'd, And have sent me to know whether yourself Will come and custom them.

    c. 1589, Christopher Marlo[we], The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta.

    Note

    A port-side verb whose object is the goods, not the money. In Christopher Marlowe's play, Barabas's ships ride safe in Malta road, and he is asked whether he will 'come and custom them'. To custom a cargo was to pay what was owed on it, so the verb is built on the toll-and-tribute noun. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • In this sense, custom takes the goods being assessed as its object and means paying their customs duties. gutenberg.org
    • The passage is in Christopher Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta. gutenberg.org
    • A merchant reports that Barabas's ships are safely riding in Malta road. gutenberg.org
    • The merchant asks Barabas whether he will come and custom them; the quoted wording is exact. en.wiktionary.org
    • Customing cargo means paying its customs, linking the verb semantically to the toll or tribute noun. en.wiktionary.org