1. A dealer in men's furnishings.
2. Chiefly British. A dealer in sewing notions and small wares.

[Middle English, perhaps from Anglo-Norman hapertas, petty wares.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.