World Wide Words: Lorinery

LORINERY/ˈlɒrɪn(ə)ri/

The craft of making various metal parts of a horse’s harness.

Lorinery is rare enough that there’s no entry for it in the Oxford English Dictionary; it seems to be relatively recent and not at all common in print, though it is found quite a lot online. The oldest example I know (for which many thanks to the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary) is from The Times in 1923.

Lorinery is carried out by loriners; the Worshipful Company of Loriners, one of the livery companies of the City of London, says: “A loriner makes and sells bits, bridles, spurs, stirrups and the minor metal items of a horse’s harness, together with the saddle tree.” There aren’t any loriners in the City of London nowadays, the centre of the British craft being in Walsall, which is perhaps why the Company no longer has a London headquarters (a hall, in the jargon).

Samuel Pepys noted in his Diary for 14 May 1668: “Thence with Lord Brouncker to Loriners’-hall, by Mooregate, a hall I never heard of before.” He wasn’t alone, it transpires: though loriner and the Worshipful Company are both medieval in date, this is the first reference to their hall anywhere.

The older form of the word is lorimer, the source of the family name; both derive from the Old French word lorenier, which is from Latin lorum, a strap or bridle.