Hairdresser

How to spell hairdresser

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce hairdresser

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hairdresser mean?

1. nounA person whose job is to cut, style, and arrange people's hair.

Hairdresser in a sentence

• The hairdresser trimmed an inch off the back and blended the layers.

• She booked an appointment with her usual hairdresser before the wedding.

Where does hairdresser come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, built from the native noun 'hair' and the verb 'dress'. The 'hair' element descends from Old English 'haer', a Germanic word for the threadlike growth on the head, with cousins right across the Germanic languages. The verb 'dress' arrived later, in the medieval period, from Old French 'dresser' meaning 'to arrange, prepare or set straight', which in turn goes back to Latin 'directus', the past participle of 'dirigere', 'to set straight or guide'. So at its root a hairdresser is literally someone who sets the hair straight or in order. The compound itself, joining the two parts with the agent suffix '-er', became established in English by the eighteenth century, replacing older terms such as 'barber' for those who styled rather than merely cut. The spelling trap is purely in the seam: 'hair' plus 'dresser' gives a doubled 's', and writers sometimes forget that the second half already ends in '-er' on top of the suffix.

How the word is built

• hair (from Old English haer)
• dress (to arrange or prepare)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)