Word.ws English Dictionary

carper

/ˈkɑː(ɹ)pə(ɹ)/UK/ˈkɑː(ɹ)pə(ɹ)/

carper noun: a person who habitually carps, who talks too much and regularly finds fault.

Noun

carper (plural carpers)

  1. A person who habitually carps, who talks too much and regularly finds fault.
    • Shame not these woods, / By putting on the cunning of a carper.c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • Come, let my carper to his life now look,
      And find there darker lines than in my book
      He findeth any […]1678, John Bunyan, “The Author’s Apology for His Book”, in The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC

Proper noun capitalized: Carper

Carper (plural Carpers)

  1. A surname.

Examples of carper in a sentence

  • He censures everything, this zealous carper.1908, Molière, translated by Curtis Hidden Page, Act I, and Scene I, Tartuffe, published 1664:
  • What is this sort of piece going to do when confronted with row upon row of coldly sober carpers?1919 August, P. G. Wodehouse, “Prohibition and the Drama”, in Vanity Fair, page 21:
  • […] Lady Tipper […] shook her head in wounded defiance of all the carpers and whiners.2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 11, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN:

Forms of carper

Noun
pluralcarpers
Proper noun
pluralCarpers

Origin of carper

From carp + -er.

Words that rhyme with carper

Questions about carper

What does carper mean?
Carper means a person who habitually carps, who talks too much and regularly finds fault.
How do you use carper in a sentence?
He censures everything, this zealous carper.
What part of speech is carper?
Carper can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce carper?
Carper is pronounced /ˈkɑː(ɹ)pə(ɹ)/ (UK).
What is the plural of carper?
The plural of carper is carpers.

Words near carper in the dictionary

  1. carpentries
  2. carpentry
  3. carpentry square
  4. carpentry squares
  5. carpents
  6. carper
  7. Carperby
  8. Carperby-cum-Thoresby
  9. carperidine
  10. carperitide
  11. carperone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: carper (page history and authors); Carper (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-carper.wav.

Cite this entry: “carper.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/carper. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.