souter

Inherited from Middle English soutere, from Old English sūtere, from Latin sūtor (“shoemaker, cobbler”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsu.tɚ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsuːtə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːtə(ɹ)
• Homophone: suitor

souter (plural souters)

1. (Scotland, Northern England) A shoemaker or cobbler.
   • 1527, William Tyndale, The Parable of the Wicked Mammon:

     There is no work better than another to please God : to pour water , to wash dishes , to be a souter (cobbler) , or an apostle

   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 31:

     He was a shoemaker, the creature, and called himself the Sutor, an old-fashioned name that folk laughed at.

• Toures, ouster, outers, rouets, routes, touser, trouse

From Middle Dutch souter (which existed alongside forms such as psalter and seltre), possibly with L-vocalization from Old Dutch psaltere, psaltare, from Latin psalterium (possibly by way of a Proto-West Germanic *psalterī), ultimately from Ancient Greek ψᾰλτήρῐον (psăltḗrĭon).

Alternatively, the Middle Dutch forms with L-vocalization (a regular sound found also in e.g. Middle Dutch sout, from Old Dutch *salt) may not represent a Middle Dutch development from Old Dutch but rather a borrowing from Old French forms that feature -aut-, such as sautier.

Doublet of psalter, psalterie, and psalterium.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɑu̯tər/

souter m (plural souters, diminutive soutertje n)

1. (obsolete) psalter

   Synonyms: psalmboek, psalter

2. (obsolete) psaltery

   Synonyms: psalterie, psalterium

• van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “souter”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute
• van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “psalter”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute

souter

1. alternative form of soutere