painter
Pluralpainters
- 1An artist who paints pictures.
The museum acquired three works by a seventeenth-century Dutch painter.
He trained as a painter before turning to sculpture.
Similarartist
Note
The plainest of three unrelated words spelled alike. This one is simply paint plus -er, already paynter in Middle English, and the house painter shares that origin. The sailor's word for the boat's mooring rope probably comes from Middle French pendeur, while the mountain lion is panther said in a Southern accent.
- 2A worker who paints surfaces such as walls or buildings, using a paintbrush or other means.
The contractor sent two painters to finish the hallway trim by Friday.
A painter spent the week sanding and priming the bridge's steel beams.
Similardecorator
- 3A line fixed to the bow of a small boat such as a dinghy, by which the boat is tied up or towed.
She secured the dinghy's painter to a cleat on the dock.
After the outboard died, a passing motorboat towed us in by our painter.
Note
A working sailor's word, and the rope sense still in everyday use. It comes with its own verbs and phrases: you untie the painter before rowing off, as the Water Rat does in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908), and a towed dinghy trails astern at the end of its painter. A boat left tied up floats or rides to its painter.
- 4A mountain lion, the large wild cat also known as a cougar or puma.
Old-timers in the valley still tell stories about the painter that screamed on the ridge at night.
He claimed a painter had been raiding his hog pen for weeks.
Similarcougar, puma, panther, catamount
Note
A regional word that writers use to give a character a backwoods voice. Cooper's frontiersman in The Deerslayer lists painters among bears, wolves and catamounts, in speech spelled to sound rural. The vowel change parallels Southern pronunciations of can't and aunt. In neutral writing, use mountain lion. Save painter for dialogue or for local color.
Less common meaning
- 5A chain or rope used to secure the shank of an anchor to the ship's side when the anchor was not in use.
The bosun checked that the anchor's painter was taut before the ship got under way.
When the painter parted in heavy seas, the anchor hammered against the hull all night.
Note
An anchor fitting that has dropped out of use. Its word probably comes from Middle French pendeur and shares that origin with the small boat's bow line, the nautical painter that survives today. Treat this meaning as a historical term. It belongs to descriptions of old ships, and a modern sailor saying painter means the boat's rope.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of painter apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origins
From Middle English paynter or peyntere, equivalent to paint plus the suffix -er.
Probably from Middle French pendeur.
From a variation of panther, paralleling other Southern pronunciations such as those for can't and aunt.