Adjacent Words

Customer definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CUSTOMER, n.
1. One who frequents any place of sale for the sake of purchasing goods; one who purchases goods or wares.
2. One who frequents or visits any place for procuring what he wants. We say, a mill has many customers. Hence a person who receives supplies is called a customer; the smith, the shoemaker and the tailor have their customers; and the coffee-house has its customers.
3. A toll-gatherer.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: someone who pays for goods or services [syn: customer, client]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Middle English custumer, from custume Date: 15th century 1. one that purchases a commodity or service 2. an individual usually having some specified distinctive trait <a real tough customer>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 a person who buys goods or services from a shop or business. 2 a person one has to deal with (an awkward customer). Etymology: ME f. AF custumer (as CUSTOMARY), or f. CUSTOM + -ER(1)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Customer Cus"tom*er (k[u^]s"t[u^]m*[~e]r), n. [A doublet of customary, a.: cf. LL. custumarius toll gatherer. See Custom.] 1. One who collect customs; a toll gatherer. [Obs.] The customers of the small or petty custom and of the subsidy do demand of them custom for kersey cloths. --Hakluyt. 2. One who regularly or repeatedly makes purchases of a trader; a purchaser; a buyer. He has got at last the character of a good customer; by this means he gets credit for something considerable, and then never pays for it. --Goldsmith. 3. A person with whom a business house has dealings; as, the customers of a bank. --J. A. H. Murray. 4. A peculiar person; -- in an indefinite sense; as, a queer customer; an ugly customer. [Colloq.] --Dickens. 5. A lewd woman. [Obs.] --Shak.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(customers) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. A customer is someone who buys goods or services, especially from a shop. Our customers have very tight budgets. ...the quality of customer service... N-COUNT 2. You can use customer in expressions such as a cool customer or a tough customer to indicate what someone's behaviour or character is like. (INFORMAL) ...two pretty awkward customers. N-COUNT: adj N

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Purchaser, buyer, patron.

Moby Thesaurus

Adamite, being, bloke, body, buyer, cat, chap, character, client, consumer, creature, duck, earthling, fellow, groundling, guy, hand, head, homo, human, human being, individual, joker, life, living soul, man, mark, mortal, nose, one, party, patron, person, personage, personality, prospect, purchaser, regular, regular customer, shopper, single, somebody, someone, soul, sucker, tellurian, terran, worldling