Fletcher

Also 5 fleccher(e, flecher, flecchour; Sc. fle(d)ger. [ad. OF. flecher, flechier arrow-maker, f. flèche arrow: see FLÈCHE.]

  1.  One who makes or deals in arrows; occasionally, one who makes bows and arrows. Obs. exc. Hist. or arch.

c. 1400.  Destr. Troy, 1593. Fferrers, flecchours, fele men of Crafte.

1457.  Sc. Acts Jas. II., c. 65 (1814), II. 48/2. A bowar and a fleger.

1465.  Mann. & Househ. Exp., 179. The flecher that dwellyd in Thurton strete owyth hym ffor tymber, ix.s. vj.d.

1541.  Act 33 Hen. VIII., c. 9 § 1. The bowiers, fletchers, stringers and arrowe head makers of this your realme.

1616.  Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 667. Which timber is of great price and estimation amongst Fletchers, for it maketh the strongest and best arrow of any wood whatsoeuer.

1664.  Evelyn, Sylva (1776), 218–9. Our fletchers commend it [the Quick-beam] for bows next to Yew, which we ought not to pass over, for the glory of our once Enlgish ancestors.

1733.  P. Lindsay, Interest Scot., 56. Any other Corporation decayed and worn out, such as the Bowers, Fletchers, and several others in London are, as to their Business.

1854.  H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., xxi. (1857), 460. As if some fletcher of the stone-age had carried on his work on the spot.

1858.  Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Fletchers’ Company, one of the minor livery companies of London, whose hall is in St Mary Axe.

  attrib.  15[?].  Kyng & Hermyt, 477, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 32.

  † 2.  An archer, a bowman. Obs.

1529.  More, Dyaloge, I. Wks. 143/1. Though one eye wer ynough for a fletcher, yet is he for store content to kepe twaine, & wold though they wer somtime sore both, & should put him to some pain.

  Hence Fletchery, the wares or goods made or sold by a fletcher.

1594.  2nd Rep. Dr. Faustus, in Thoms, E. E. Prose Rom. (1858), III. 411. They brought store of fletchery to them in carts, which were there disburdened, so every archer being five double furnished.