Word.ws English Dictionary

kembster

kembster noun: a woman who cleans or combs out wool.

Noun

kembster (plural kembsters)

  1. (archaic, historical) A woman who cleans or combs out wool
    • A married woman who supplemented her family's income by brewing ale or combing wool for yarn would not have been identified in the records as a brewster or kembster.2005, Marjorie Keniston McIntosh, Working Women in English Society, 1300-1620, page 15

Forms of kembster

pluralkembsters
alternative formkempster

Origin of kembster

From Middle English kembestere, kempstare, kemster, equivalent to kemb + -ster.

Questions about kembster

What does kembster mean?
Kembster means a woman who cleans or combs out wool.
What part of speech is kembster?
Kembster is a noun.
What is the plural of kembster?
The plural of kembster is kembsters.

Words near kembster in the dictionary

  1. kembo
  2. kemboed
  3. kemboing
  4. kembos
  5. kembs
  6. kembster
  7. kembsters
  8. Kemelman
  9. kemenche
  10. kemenches
  11. Kemener

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kembster (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.

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