Before the term carpenter was used in the fourteenth century, people referred to them as treowwyrhta, meaning “tree-worker” in Old English. The term carpenter was introduced by the Anglo-Normans from a dialect in northern France where workers were called carpentiers, stemming from the Latin phrase artifex carpentarius meaning “wagon maker”. The word artifex translates to “craftsman”, with the root of carpenter indicating “wagon”. This can be traced back to carpentum, referring to a type of two-wheeled chariot borrowed from the Gauls, known as carbantos. Ultimately, this originates from Proto-Italic karbantos, signifying “war chariot”, possibly related to the etymology of the word car (potentially from Proto-Indo-European krsos, meaning “to run”).
