W" STER. An Anglo- Saxon termination, denoting some feminine occupation, as ER does a masculine one, as spinner, spinster. Many of the surnames with this desinence shew the change of English customs in regard to the emiloyments of women within the past few centuries : for example, brewing, baking, and weaving were formerly feminine labours, and consequently Brewster, Baxter, Webster mean the woman (not the man) who brews, bakes, or weaves. HoAv these feminine words became transferred to the other gender, so as to become hereditary as surnames, is explained by Mr. Poulson, in his Beverlac, p. 128. — " When men began to invade those departments of industry by which Avomcn used to earn an honest livelihood, they retained the feminine appellation for some time, as men-midwives and men-milliners now do; but afterwards masculine words drove the feminine ones out of the language, as men had driven the women out of the employments." See moreinEng. Surn., i. ll-t.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.