While watching a video clip of the pilot series "Are you being served?" yesterday I ran into a word I had long forgotten - haberdashery. Its General British pronunciation is /ˈhæbəˌdæʃərɪ/. According to OED the etymology of <haberdasher> is doubtful:
Has the form of a derivative of haberdash n. [...], or of the Anglo-Norman hapertas (quasi *hapertassier, *haberdassier); but the actual nature of the relationship between these words is left doubtful by their relative dates, as well as by the undetermined relation in which haberdash and hapertas stand to each other.
As to the meaning(s) of <haberdashery>:
In British English you can buy buttons, hooks, needles, ribbon, thread etc. at a haberdashery.
In American English, Merriam Webster tells us, it denotes a place where men's clothing and accessories are sold.
Here's the OED2 date chart for the word (there seem to be no date charts in OED3 any more):
Have you been to a British haberdashery lately?
Addendum:A colleague of mine from the American Studies Dep. told me that Harry Truman had been a haberdasher before he became 33rd President of the US. He opened a haberdashery together with his close friend Edward Jacobson in Kansas City, but the store went bankrupt in 1921.
|Truman-Jacobson haberdashery around 1920|